mutchkin Sc.
(ˈmʌtʃkɪn)
Also 6 mych-, mutskin, musking, 7 mutchin, mwching, 8 mutchken, -kine, muchkin.
[a. early mod.Du. mudseken (now mutsje), app. an irregular diminutive of mud(de mud n.2]
A measure of capacity for liquids (or for dry substances of a powdery or granular character); the fourth part of the old Scots pint, or about three-quarters of an imperial pint.
| ? 1425 Sc. Acts Jas. I (1814) II. 12 Quhilkis makis..of þe new mete now ordanit ix pyntis & three muchekynis. 1508 Acc. Ld. High Treas. Scot. (1902) IV. 113 Item, to Pieris the payntour, for glew,..thre mychkinnis olye, calk, for the chapell. 1591 in Thanes of Cawdor (Spald. Club) 200 Item thrie muskingis aquavitye xv s. 1603 Rec. Convent. Roy. Burghs Scot. (1870) II. 157 Ilk burgh..caus mak and haue all thair mesouris of stovpeis of quart, pynt, choping, and mwching,..conformeable to the jadge and stovpe of Sterling. 1632 Lithgow Trav. x. 478 With Wine, a mutchkin, thrice a weeke Pack'd in her pocket. 1769 De Foe's Tour Gt. Brit. (ed. 7) IV. 252 Boys and Girls, coming..to sell us Whortle⁓berries,..sold to every one of us near a Mutchkin for a Baubee. 1756 M. Calderwood Jrnl. (1884) 85 The proportion..was like our mutchkin of salt to twenty pound weight of butter. 1814 Scott Wav. xxxix, He whistled the ‘Bob of Dumblain’, under the influence of half a mutchkin of brandy. a 1884 Peerie Nugæ Eccles. I. 24 Another mutchkin, Dibble. |
b. Comb., as mutchkin cap, mutchkin stoup, mutchkin tin.
| 1721 Ramsay Ode to Ph― iii, That mutchkin stoup it hauds but dribs. 1786 Burns Earnest Cry 7 Paint Scotland greetan owre her thrissle; Her mutchkin stowp as toom's a whissle. a 1791 Grose Olio (1796) 115 Paddy lifted a muchkin tin..and threw it at the narrator. 1823 Galt Gilhaize xiv, A smith came in for a mutchkin-cap of ale. |