Musical Comedy Artiste. The new pet name for a chorus girl.
Musical Small-Coal Man. The lifelong sobriquet of Thomas Britton of Aylesbury Street, Clerkenwell, where was his coal shed. He inaugurated Thursday evening concerts, that attracted fashionable enthusiasts from the West End. This worthy, though he earned his livelihood by crying small coals in the street, was a scholar, a musician, and a companion of gentlemen.
Muslin. Called by the French Mousseline, from Mosul in Asiatic Turkey, whence during the Middle Ages this fabric was sent to supply all the markets of Europe.
Muss. An Americanism for “mess,” used in the sense of a confusion or disorder. It is used also to imply a squabble or a reprimand--e.g. “I got into a dreadful muss this morning.”
Mussulman. See “[Moslem].”
Muswell Hill. Properly “Mustwell Hill,” from the Latin mustus, fresh. On this hill there was discovered an ancient well of clear, fresh water, that belonged to the prior of St John’s Clerkenwell and Highbury, who had a dairy farm hereabouts.
Mutes. See “[Undertaker].”
Mutoscope. A modern peep show, in which the figures move; living pictures, so called from the Latin mutatis, to change, and the Greek skopein, to view.
Myddleton Square. After Sir Hugh Myddleton, who at his own cost embarked upon the ruinous enterprise of constructing the New River from Chadwell in Hertfordshire, nearly forty miles distant, to London. One of the reservoirs occupies the enclosed portion of this square.
My Eye. An exclamation signifying “You dazzle me,” “You make me blink with astonishment.” Its American equivalent is briefly “My!”