or mooching, mouching, subs. (common).—1.  Prowling; (2) pilfering; and (3) playing-truant. Also MICHERY and MIKERY.

1

  1393.  GOWER, Confessio Amantis, v.

        But nowe thou shalt fall sore able
That like stelthe of MICHERIE.
    Ibid.
For no man of his counsaile knoweth,
What he maie gette of his MICHYNGE.

2

  c. 1420–80.  HENRYSON, Fables, ‘The Fox and the Wolf,’ l. 5. That durst no more with MICHING intermell.

3

  1596.  SHAKESPEARE, Hamlet, iii. 2, 147. Marry, this is MICHING mallecho; it means mischief.

4

  1603.  DEKKER, The Wonderful Yeare 1603 [GROSART (1886), i. 113]. Yet went they (most bitterly) MICHING and muffled vp and downe.

5

  1892.  HUME NISBET, The Bushranger’s Sweetheart, p. 115. Sandy Macintosh looked fit for anything, from MOUCHING up to murder, so long as not too much courage was required.

6

  Adj. (common).—1.  Skulking; (2) lurking; (3) mean.

7

  15[?].  Songs & Poems on Costume [Percy Society], 687.

        Nothinge so fearde we are of theves,
  Whiche ofte are layde in jayles,
As now we are of MYCHINGE knaves,
  That cut off horses tayles.

8

  1616.  BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, The Scornful Lady, v. 1. Some MEECHING rascal in her house.

9

  1648.  HERRICK, Hesperides, II. 67.

                        A cat
I keep, that plays about my house,
                Grown fat
With eating many a MICHING mouse.

10

  1822.  SCOTT, The Fortunes of Nigel, xxiii. To mingle the soul of martial honour with thy thieving, MICHING, petty-larceny blood.

11

  1862.  J. R. LOWELL, The Biglow Papers, 2nd Series, p. 13.

        But I ain’t o’ the MEECHIN’ kind, thet sets an’ thinks fer weeks
The bottom ’s out o’ th’ univarse coz their own gillpot leaks.

12

  1877.  S. O. JEWETT, Deephaven, p. 159. ‘How come the ship to run up a tailor’s bill?’ ‘Why, them ’s mine,’ says the cap’n, very MEACHING.

13