Moors. From the Latin mauri, and Spanish moros, “black.” Elsewhere denominated “Saracens,” these Arab conquerors of the peninsula were called by the Spaniards “Moriscoes.”
Mop Fair. The name given to a fair held a few days after the periodical Statute Fair for the hiring of farm servants. The dregs of the Statute Fair are then mopped or swept up.
Moravia. From the Morava, which name expresses a marsh or boundary river.
Moravians. The followers of John Huss, driven out of Bohemia and Moravia by religious persecutions early in the eighteenth century.
Morgan Horse. A favourite breed of American sporting horse descended from the animal owned by Justin Morgan, a schoolmaster of Randolph, Vermont, nearly a hundred years ago.
Morgue. So far from denoting a mortuary, this term really means the inner wicket of a prison, where the identification marks of new arrivals are taken before they have their cells and tasks assigned to them. It is therefore not incorrectly applied to the place of public examination and identification of the unknown dead.
Morisonians. A religious sect which separated from the Scottish Presbyterians in 1841, under the leadership of James Morison.
Mormons. A sect whose founder, Joseph Smith, claimed to have received a new revelation in “The Book of Mormon,” written on gold plates by the angel Mormon, the last of the Hebrew line of prophets, in 1827.
Mornington Crescent. After the Earl of Mornington, Governor-General of India, the brother of the Duke of Wellington.
Morocco. The territory of the Moriscoes or “Moors.”