To plead or pretend poverty. Sc.
1822. It’s no right o’ you to be aye making a puir mouth.—Blackwood’s Mag., xii. p. 307/1 (Sept.). (N.E.D.)
1859. He lives about six miles from here, an’ makes a mighty poor mouth about me an’ my old woman holdin’ a square mile, when he can’t git but half that for him an’ seven children, bekase his wife’s dead.—Mrs. Duniway, ‘Captain Gray’s Company,’ p. 174 (Portland, Oregon).
1885. You wanted to come here and make a poor mouth to Mrs. Lapham before I got home.—W. D. Howells, ‘The Rise of Silas Lapham,’ ch. xxv. (N.E.D.)
