To muddle away, verb. phr. (colloquial).—To squander aimlessly; to
waste one knows not how.
Muddle-head, subs. (common).—A fool. Hence muddle-headed, adj.
(colloquial).—Doltish.
1837. Dickens, Oliver Twist, xxx. What a precious muddle-headed
chap you are.
1856. Reade, Never too Late to Mend, vi. They are muddle-heads.
Muddler, subs. (racing).—A clumsy horse.
Mud-fog Association, subs. phr. (obsolete).—See quots.
1838. Dickens in Bentley’s Mag., iv. 209–227. Full Report of the
Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of
Everything [Title].
1886. C. Dickens, Junior, in Household Words, 1 May, p. 13. Many
critics have derided as a gross exaggeration a very early skit of
my father’s which satirised the proceedings of a certain Mudfog
Association, but some recent meetings of the Social Science
Association were quite as ridiculous.
Mudge, subs. (thieves’).—See quot. For synonyms see Golgotha.
1888. Sportsman, 22 Dec. The judge said that he had noticed that
one of the witnesses had referred to the hat as a mudge, a word
which he had not heard of before. One had always to learn, and for
the future he should be able to add mudge to his vocabulary. The
gangs of Liverpool are clever at ‘bashing mudges,’ ‘slipping
wipes,’ and ‘catching a Waterbury wind-for-ever.’
Mudger, subs. (old).—A milk-sop.
1830. Sir E. B. Lytton, Paul Clifford, xxii. Ah, he was a fellow!
none of your girl-faced mudgers, who make love to ladies,
forsooth—a pretty woman need not look far for a kiss when he was in
the room, I warrant, however coarse her duds might be.
Mud-hen, subs. (American Stock Exchange).—A female gambler.
1876. San Francisco Post, Nov. The average mud-hen is middle-aged,
rather stout in person, as voluble in conversation as a
stump-speaker, and possessed of an inordinate desire to become a
‘stock-sharp.’ She has a wonderful amount of gossip and ‘dead-sure
points’ to communicate, and is by no means unwilling to reveal all
she knows to any one who is supposed to have information relative
to any stock, and in return can give her a point.
Mud-hole, subs. (whalers’).—A salt-water lagoon in which whales are
captured.
Mud-honey, subs. (common).—Mud; street slush.
Mud-hook, subs. (nautical).—An anchor.
Mud-lark, subs. (common).—1. See quots.
1796. Colquhoun, Police of the Metropolis, p. 60. These aquatic
plunderers ... practise another device, by connecting themselves
with men and boys, known by the name of mud-larks, who prowl about,
and watch under the ship when the tide will permit, and to whom
they throw small parcels of sugar, coffee, and other articles of
plunder, which are conveyed to the receivers by the mud-larks, who
generally have a certain share of the booty.
1811. Lex. Bal., s.v.
1823. Bee, Dict. Turf, s.v. Mudlarks—fellows who scratch about in
gutters for horsenails, and other fragments of scrap-iron; also
women who go into the Thames, at low-water, to pick from the mud
bits of coal, which are spilled from the barges along-shore.
1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., ii. 173. There is another class who
may be termed riverfinders, although their occupation is connected
only with the shore; they are commonly known by the name of
mud-larks, from being compelled, in order to obtain the articles
they seek, to wade sometimes up to their middle through the mud
left on the shore by the retiring tide. The mud-larks collect
whatever they happen to find, such as coals, bits of old-iron,
rope, bones, and copper nails that drop from ships while lying or
repairing along shore.
1871. Daily News, 26 Dec. ‘Workhouse Xmas. Depravity.’ Why, there’s
Jemima Ann ... has ... been bleeding me of a fiver to send to some
Christmas Dinner Fund for juvenile mudlarks.