mistress, the small bowl, or jack, in the game of bowls. Middleton, No Wit like a Woman’s, ii. 3 (Mis. Low.); cp. ‘His bias was towards my mistress’, Shirley, Witty Fair One, ii. 2 (Brains); cp. A Woman never vext, iv. 1 (Lambskin).
misured, ill-omened, fatal; ‘O foule mysuryd ground, Whereon he gat his finall dedely wounde’, Skelton, Dethe of Erle of Northumberland, 118. Cp. OF. meseur, ‘malheur’ (Godefroy); meseurus, ‘malheureux’ (Chron. des ducs de Normandie, in Didot). See [eure].
mite, a small coin of very small value; used in negative phrases for a thing of little worth; ‘The price falleth not one mite’, More’s Utopia (ed. Arber, 42). Hence miting: ‘Nat worthe a mytyng’, not worth a mite, Skelton, Poems against Garnesche, iii. 115. ME. myte: ‘Noght worth a myte’ (Chaucer, C. T. A. 1558). See Dict.
mithridate, a compound regarded as an antidote against all poisons. Fletcher, Valentinian, v. 2 (Val.); Massinger, Maid of Honour, iv. 4 (Adorni). Named from Mithridates, king of Pontus, who was said to have been proof against poison owing to his constant use of antidotes. See Stanford.
miting, a diminutive creature; freq. used as a term of endearment or contempt, Skelton, El. Rummyng, 224. ME. mytyng (Towneley Myst. xii. 477).
mixt, to mix; ‘I myxte, or myngell’, Palsgrave; pres. pt., mixting, Elyot, Governour, bk. i, ch. 13, § 4. Hence mixt, a mixture; ‘A mixt of both’, Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, bk. ii, ch. 9 (ed. Arber, 97). From the L. pp. mixtus.
mo, moe, orig. used as adv.; ‘Gent’lest fair, mourne, mourne no moe’ (mourn no more), Fletcher, Q. Corinth, iii. 2 (Song); the moe, the majority, the greater part, Puttenham, Eng. Poesie, i. 15 (ed. Arber, 48); mo, more in number, ‘mo tymes’, Caxton, Reynard (ed. Arber, 7); ‘Infinite moe . . . He there beheld’, Spenser, F. Q. ii. 7. 63. ME. mo, adj., more in number, adv., any longer (Chaucer); OE. mā; Goth. mais, more (adv.). See Wright’s OE. Gram. § 252.
mobble, moble, to muffle up one’s head or face; also, with up; ‘Mobled queen’, Hamlet, ii. 2. 524; mobble up, Shirley, Gent. of Venice, v. 3 (Florelli). A Warw. and Shropsh. word, see EDD. (s.v. Moble).
mobile, mob; ‘The mobile’, Dryden, Pref. to Don Sebastian, § 2; id., i. 1 (near the end); iv. 2 (end). Common from ab. 1676 to 1700; shortened to mobb, c. 1688. It represents the L. mobile vulgus, the inconstant crowd. See Dict. (s.v. Mob), and Stanford.
mockado, a kind of cloth much used for clothing; ‘Who would not thinke it a ridiculous thing to see a Lady in her milke-house with a velvet gowne, and at a bridall in her cassock of mockado’, Puttenham, Eng. Poesie (ed. Arber, 290); Ford, Lady’s Trial, ii. 1 (Guzman); Lodge, Wit’s Miserie, 14. A quasi-Spanish form from F. moucade, ‘the stuffe moccadoe’ (Cotgr.). Of Arab. origin, see NED. (s.v. Mohair), and Thomas, Essais (s.v. Camoiard).