subs. (tailors’).—1. An ill-favoured woman. For general synonyms, see UGLY MUG.
2. (American).—A bribe received by Customs officers in New York for permitting imported dutiable goods to remain on the wharf when they ought to go to the general store-house.
TO BURY (or DIG UP) THE HATCHET.—See BURY.
TO THROW (or SLING) THE HATCHET, verb. phr. (common).—1. To tell lies, to yarn; to DRAW THE LONG BOW (q.v.). Hence HATCHET FLINGING (or THROWING) = lying or yarning.
1789. G. PARKER, Life’s Painter, p. 94. This is a fault, which many of good understanding may fall into, who, from giving way too much to the desire of telling anecdotes, adventures, and the like, habituate themselves by degrees to a mode of the HATCHET-FLINGING extreme.
1821. P. EGAN, Life in London, p. 217. There is nothing creeping or THROWING THE HATCHET about this description.
1893. P. H. EMERSON, Signor Lippo, ch. xx. We had to call her mother, and, if anyone stopped, she’d SLING THE HATCHET to them, and tell them she was a poor lone widow left with five children.
2. (nautical).—To sulk.
