TO STAND MOSES, verb. phr. (old).—See quots.
1611. COTGRAVE, Dictionarie. HOLIE MOYSES, whose ordinarie counterfeit having on either side of the head an eminence, or luster, arising somewhat in the forme of a horne, hath imboldened a prophane author to stile cuckolds parents de Moyse.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1811. GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. MOSES. A man is said TO STAND MOSES when he has another man’s bastard child fathered upon him, and he is obliged by the parish to maintain it.
1859. G. W. MATSELL, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v. MOSES. A man that fathers another man’s child for a consideration.
BY THE PIPER THAT PLAYED BEFORE MOSES, phr. (common).—An oath. Also BY THE HOLY JUMPING MOTHER OF MOSES. See OATHS.
1855. STRANG, Glasgow and Its Clubs, 243. But, HOLY MOSES! what a rear?
1876. C. HINDLEY, ed. The Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack, p. 109. Screw your courage to the sticking place, and BY THE HOLY-JUMPING-MOTHER-OF-MOSES—who was my uncle—we’ll not fail.
1890. HUME NISBET, Bail Up! 212. ‘And, BY THE PIPER THAT PLAYED BEFORE MOSES, so they did,’ replied her companion coolly.
1892. HUME NISBET, The Bushranger’s Sweetheart, p. 153. ‘Did I spake concerning the stable and a wisp of straw, me boy, for you and your friend? No, BY THE PIPER WHICH PLAYED BEFORE MOSES, ye shall have our best bedroom this night to lie in, and be carried up to it also.’
