Mouse

subs. (pugilistic).—1.  See quots. 1860 and 1895. Cf. BLACKWALL.

  1857.  REV. E. BRADLEY (‘Cuthbert Bede’), The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green, an Oxford Freshman, pt. ii. ch. iv. ‘That ’ll raise a tidy MOUSE on your ogle, my lad!’

  1860.  O. W. HOLMES, The Professor at the Breakfast-Table, xi. 354. MOUSE is a technical term for a bluish, oblong, rounded elevation occasioned by running one’s forehead or eyebrow against another’s knuckles.

  1887.  G. D. ATKIN, House Scraps, 54.

  1888.  Sporting Life, 10 Dec. Bringing his right into play with extreme force, caused a MOUSE to appear on his opponent’s left peeper.

  1895.  Westminster Gazette. A black eye in true cockney slang is known as a MOUSE, and this accounts for the fact that a cockney near his platform on Sunday shouted out, ‘Jack, where is your rat-trap?’ Mr. Burns was rather astounded. ‘Why a rat-trap?’ he said, thinking vaguely of ‘black-legs’ and Liberal Unionists. ‘For that big MOUSE on yer eye,’ cried the delighted cockney.

  2.  (venery).—The penis. For synonyms, see CREAMSTICK and PRICK. Cf. MOUSER.

  3.  (old).—A term of endearment.

  1593.  ALLEYN [in COLLIER, Memoirs, 25]. My good sweete MOUSE [of his wife].

  1594.  SHAKESPEARE, Love’s Labour’s Lost, v. 2. What’s your dark meaning, MOUSE?

  1594.  Look About You, Sc. 25 [DODSLEY, Old Plays, 1874, vii. 463]. Sweet MOUSE, the hermit bids you stay here.

  1611.  BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, The Knight of the Burning Pestle, i. 2. Wife. … Stay, youths, I beseech you, till I question my husband. Cit. What is it, MOUSE?

  1656.  The Muses Recreation [HOTTEN], p. 33. Even Mopsa, prety MOUSE.

  4.  (common).—The face.

  5.  (old).—The mouth. Also as verb. = to bite. Cf. MOUSLE.

  1557.  TUSSER, Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie [E.E.T.S. 91, 38, 3].

  1596.  SHAKESPEARE, King John, ii. 1. line 354. And now he feasts, MOUSING the flesh of kings.

  1675.  WYCHERLEY, The Country Wife, ii. 1. He told me none but naughty women sat there whom they tous’d and MOUS’D.

  6.  (common).—The same as MOUSE-PIECE (q.v.).

  1888.  N. GOULD, The Double Event, p. 223. He’s turned MOUSE, has he?

  Verb. (American).—To go mouse-like: i.e., as in depreciation of one’s self. [A variant of MOUCH.]

  1871.  S. L. CLEMENS (‘Mark Twain’), Sketches, ‘An Entertaining Article.’ The poor blunderer MOUSES among the sublime creations of the Old Masters.

  Intj. (old).—See quot.

  1859.  G. W. MATSELL, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v. MOUSE. Be quiet; be still; talk low; whisper; step light; make no noise; softly.

  TO SPEAK LIKE A MOUSE IN A CHEESE, verb. phr. (old).—See quot.

  1811.  GROSE and CLARKE, Lexicon Balatronicum, s.v. MOUSE. TO SPEAK LIKE A MOUSE IN A CHEESE; i.e., faintly or indistinctly.

  AS DRUNK AS A MOUSE, phr. (old).—Very drunk. See DRINKS and SCREWED.

  c. 1508[?].  Colyn Blowbol’s Testament, line 141. Oft hath made [me] DRONKE AS ANY MOUS.

  c. 1540.  Doctour Doubble Ale, 95.