muck-a-muck
(ˈmʌkəmʌk)
[Chinook jargon.]
1. Used by or with reference to Amerindians of western North America: food.
| 1847 J. Palmer Jrnl. Trav. Rocky Mts. 150 Muck-a-muck, Provisions, eat. 1852 Oregonian (Portland) 25 Dec. 2/3 The aborigine..‘put’ for the settlement with a sort of legs-do-your-duty-for-the-body-is-in-danger resolution for his muckamuck. 1863 Norfolk Reformer (Simcoe, Ontario) 8 Jan. 3/1 On arriving as far back as Lytton or Lilooet, there was employment..and ‘muca muc’, as the Indian name implies. 1880 Forest & Stream 11 Nov. 285/2 We should have to come ashore and have some ‘muck-a-muck’. 1895 H. S. Somerset Land of Muskeg 167 Yes, all kinds of muck-a-muck at McLeod; jam, cake, biscuits..plenty plenty muck-a-muck, you see. 1915 R. D. Cumming Skookum Chuck Fables 18 Perhaps he had bought all his luxuries on jaw-bone from one store while he paid cash for his muck-a-muck in another. 1963 R. D. Symons Many Trails 74 Hi-ya tillicum... You plenty muck-a-muck stop. |
2. fig. Shortening of high-muck-a-muck.
| 1912 Kipling Songs from Books (1913) 159 Shaman, Ju-ju or Angekok, Minister, Mukamuk, Bonze. 1914 Dialect Notes IV. 113 Squeegee, a person of importance; muckamuck:—used derisively. 1966 H. Kane Conceal & Disguise iv. 28 Cape Ulrich was for the muckamucks, the coupon-clippers, the expense account lads, the heavy rich. |