1671. Buckingham, Rehearsal, p. 23. I’m resolv’d to mump your proud
players.
1673. Wycherley, Gentleman Dancing Master, iii. 1. You will mump
the poor old father.
Mumper, subs. (old).—See quots. 1665, 1748, 1755, 1785 and 1876.
English synonyms. Abram-man (or -cove); bawdy-basket; Bedlam-beggar;
blue-gown (old Scots’); cadator; cadger; canter; croaker; curtail;
durry-nacker; dry-land sailor; filer; frater; goose-shearer; Irish
toyle; keyhole whistler; master of the black art; maunder;
milestone-monger; moucher; mud-plunger; mugger; mumper; munger;
needy-mizzler; niffler; overland-mailer (or -man); palliard;
paper-worker; pikey; ruffler; scoldrum; shivering James (or Jemmy);
shyster; skipper-bird; skitting-dealer; silver-beggar; street-ganger;
strolling-mort; sundowner; swag-man; tinkard; Tom of Bedlam; traveller;
turn-pike; uhlan; upright man; wash-man; whip-jack.
For foreign synonyms see Shyster.
1665. R. Head, English Rogue, Pt. I. ch. v. p. 50 (1874). Mumpers
gentile [genteel] beggars.
1690. Durfey, Collin’s Walk, C. I. p. 27. That even Vagabonds and
mumpers, Have from my bounty had full Bumpers.
1690. Crowne, English Friar, ii. 1. My lady is ... rather a mumper;
she has begg’d the backhouse, the gardens, to lay herself and her
goods in.
1693. Congreve, Old Batchelor. Lucy. Hang thee—Beggar’s cur!—Thy
master is but a mumper in love, lies canting at the gate.
1694. Poor Robin [Nares]. Since the king of beggars was married to
the queen of sluts, at Lowzy-hill, near Beggars-bush, being most
splendidly attended on by a ragged regiment of mumpers.
1703. Ward, London Spy, pt. I. p. 7. He is one of those gentile
mumpers, we call Cadators; he goes a Circuit round England once a
year, and under Pretence of a decay’d gentleman, gets both Money
and Entertainment at every good House he comes at.
1705. Hudibras Redivivus, pt. 4. Here, said I, take your mumper’s
fee, Let’s see one; thank you, sir, said she.
1712. Spectator, No. 509. The mumpers, the halt, the blind, and the
lame.
1748. T. Dyche, Dictionary (5th ed.) Mumpers (S.) among the Gipsy
Crew, is called the 47th order of canters or genteel beggars, who
will not accept of victuals, but only money or cloaths.
1754. The World, No. 64. I was at his door by nine; where, after
the fashion of mumpers, I gave but one single knock for fear of
disturbing him.
1755. Johnson, Eng. Dict. (1814), s.v. Mumper. In cant language. A
beggar.
1777. Bailey, Eng. Dict., s.v. Mumper, a genteel beggar.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v. Mumper, originally beggars of the
genteel kind, but since used for beggars in general.
1830. Scott, Doom of Devorgoil, ii. 2. The courtier begs a riband
or a star, And like our gentler mumpers, is provided With false
certificates of health and fortune Lost in the public service.
1834. W. H. Ainsworth, Rookwood, p. 130 (ed. 1864). ‘Ha, ha! Are
you there, my old death’s head on a mopstick?’ said Turpin, with a
laugh. ‘Ain’t we merry mumpers, eh? Keeping it up in style. Sit
down, old Noah; make yourself comfortable, Methusalem.’
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., iii. A Lincoln’s Inn mumper was a
proverb.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v.
1868. Temple Bar, xxiv. 537. When he can’t go on in that racket
he’ll turn mumper.
1876. Hindley, Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 64. A big mumper,
that is a half-bred gipsey.
Mumper’s-hall, subs. (old).—A hedge tavern; a beggar’s alehouse.
1785. Grose, Vulg. Tongue, s.v.
Mumping, subs. and adj. (old).—Begging.
1820–33. Lamb, Elia, Works (ed. 1852), p. 389. When they come with
their counterfeit looks and mumping tones.
Mumpins, subs. (old).—Alms.
c.1460. Towneley Mysteries, Primus Pastorum, p. 89. 2d Pastor ...
let us go foder Our mompyns.
Mumpish, subs. (colloquial).—Dull; dejected.
Mumple-mumper. See Mummer.
Mumps, subs. (common).—Low spirits. See quot. 1754.
1599. Nashe, Lenten Stuffe, in Wks. (Grosart). v. 267. The sunne
was so in his mumps vppon it, that it was almost noone before hee
could goe to cart that day.
1754. B. Martin, Eng. Dict. (2nd ed.). Mumps ... flouts, or ill
humour.
Mumpsimus, subs. (old).—See quot.
1847. Halliwell, Archaic & Provincial Words, s.v. Mumpsimus. An old
error in which men obstinately persevere: taken from a tale of an
ignorant monk, who in his breviary had always said mumpsimus
instead of sumpsimus, and being told of his mistake, said, ‘I will
not change my old mumpsimus for your new sumpsimus’.
Munch-present (or mounch-present), subs. (old).—See ante.
Mund. See Muns.
Mundungus, subs. (old).—Bad tobacco.
c.1633. Lady Alimony, ii. 2. Sir Gregory Shapeless, a mundungo
monopolist.
1665. Howard, The Committee, ii. A pipe of the worst mundungus.
1671. Shadwell, Humorists, iii. 41. A glass of Windy-Bottle-Ale in
one hand, and a pipe of mundungus in the other.
d.1680. Butler, Remains [1759, ii. 107]. Spoiled the tobacco for it
presently became mundungus.
1689. J. Phillips, Satyr against Hypocrites, 13. Now steams of
garlick whiffing thro’ the nose Stank worse than Luther’s socks, or
foot-boy’s toes. With these mundungos, and a breath that smells
Like standing pools in subterranean cells.
1691–2. Gentlemen’s Journal, Mar., p. 10. To nasty mundungus, and
heath ’nish small beer.
1703. Ward, London Spy, Part iv. p. 80. The mixtures of scents that
arose from mundungus-tobacco.
1755. Johnson, Dict., s.v. Mundungus, n. f. Stinking tobacco. A
cant word.
1811. Lex. Bal., s.v.
1824. Scott, St. Ronan’s Well, xxxii. Her jet-black cutty pipe,
from which she soon sent such clouds of vile mundungus vapour as
must have cleared the premises of Lady Penelope.
Adj. (old).—Stinking.
1750. Robertson of Struan, Poems, 50. To drink mundungus ale.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v. Mondongo. Filthy; full of stench; it
stinks beyond the power of endurance.
Mung, subs. (American).—News; mung-news = false news.
1849. New York Express, 17 Feb. As many of our citizens who intend
to go to California may base their arrangements upon the mung news
of some of the papers, we conceive it to be our duty to state that
most of these letters are fictions.
Verb. (tramps’).—See quots.
1811. Lex. Bal., s.v.
1851–61. Mayhew, Lond. Lab., i. 265. I sold small articles of
Tunbridge ware, perfumery, &c., &c., and by munging (begging) over
them—sometimes in Latin—got a better living than I expected, or
probably deserved.
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v. Mung. To solicit; to beg.
1893. Emerson, Signor Lippo, 52. Many’s the time you’ve been
waiting on me coming home to give you some of the grub I’ve munged.
Mungarly (Munjari, or Mungare), subs. (strollers’ and tramps’).—See
quots.
1851–61. H. Mayhew, London Lab. and Lon. Poor, iii. 149. We
[strolling actors] call breakfast, dinner, tea, supper, all of them
mungare.
1876. Hindley, Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 170. Help you and
your school to some dinarly and mungarly, i.e., money and food.
1889. Answers, 11 May, p. 374. The ‘clobber’ (old clothes) which
have been presented by charitable persons are exchanged and sold,
broken meat and scraps of bread (‘Bull and Munjari’ they are
called) are given out liberally, and the blind men and cripples are
the jolliest crowd imaginable.
1893. Emerson, Signor Lippo, x. I ... went to one of my regular
padding-kens to sell the mungarly to some of the needies there for
nova soldi. Ibid. 12. Chuck it, we’ll go and have a bit of mungarly
now.
Mungarly-casa, subs. (thieves’).—See quot.
1864. Times, 18 Oct. Another curious instance of the prevalence of
this Lingua Franca is the word Mungarly, as representing bread or
food. Mungarly Casa is a baker’s shop, evidently a corruption of
some Lingua Franca phrase for an eating-house. The well-known Nix
Mangiare stairs at Malta derive their name from the endless beggars
who lie there and shout ‘Nix Mangiare,’ i.e., ‘Nothing to eat,’ to
excite the compassion of the English who land there—an expression
which exhibits remarkably the mongrel composition of the Lingua
Franca, mangiare being Italian, and nix an evident importation from
Trieste or other Austrian seaport.
Munpin, subs. (old).—In pl. = the teeth. For synonyms see Grinders.
d.1450. Lydgate, Minor Poems, p. 30. Thy mone-pynnes bene lyche old
yuong.
Muns, subs. 1. (old).—The mouth. See quot. 1665. Also Mund.
1665. R. Head, English Rogue, Pt. 1. ch. v. p. 50 (1874). Munns.
The Face.
1724. Coles, Eng. Dict., s.v.
1760. Foote, Mirror, i. Why, you jade, you look as rosy this
morning, I must have a smack at your munns.
1789. G. Parker, Life’s Painter, ‘The Bunter’s Christening’. The
first thing that was done, Sir, Was handling round the kid, That
all might smack his muns, Sir.
1811. Lex. Bal., s.v.
1819. T. Moore, Tom Crib’s Memorial, p. 16. While Sandy’s long arms
... Kept paddling about the poor Porpus’s muns, Till they made him
as hot and as cross as lent Buns!
1823. Bee, Dict. Turf, s.v. Muns—the mouth. ‘One a penny, two a
penny, hot cross buns, If you have no daughters give them to your
sons: If you have no sons, stuff them in your muns.’
1859. Matsell, Vocabulum, s.v. Mund. The mouth. Ibid. Munds, the
face.