mopstick
(ˈmɒpstɪk)
[f. mop n.3 + stick.]
1. a. The handle of a mop.
| 1710 Swift Jrnl. to Stella 16 Dec., Hang it [a picture] carefully in some part of your room, where chairs and candles and mop-sticks won't spoil it. 1818 Miss Mitford in L'Estrange Life (1870) II. 31 Our candidate is vastly like a mopstick, or, rather, a tall hop-pole. |
† b. cry mapsticks! app. a vulgar jocose perversion of ‘I cry you mercy’.
Obs.| 1738 Swift Pol. Conversat. i. 26 Neverout. Cry, Map⁓sticks, Madam; no Offence, I hope. |
c. = cockalorum 3.
colloq.| 1969 I. & P. Opie Children's Games viii. 257 In Warwick, ‘Mollie, Mollie Mopstick, all off! all off!’ In Nuneaton: Mopstick, mopstick, bear our weight, Two, four, six, eight, ten. Ibid. 260 ‘Jack upon the Mopstick’ (Warwickshire, 1892),..‘Johnny on the Mopstick’ (Worcester, c. 1930),..‘Mopstick’ (Kettering, c. 1915). |
2. Pianoforte manufacture. (See
quot. 1875.)
| 1870 Brinsmead Hist. Pianoforte 52 The sticker, or mop⁓stick,..raised the damper at the same moment that the hammer was impelled against the string. 1875 Knight Dict. Mech., Mop stick, a vertical damper-rod at the end of the key in the old piano-forte movement, single action. |
| attrib. 1885 Hipkins in Encycl. Brit. XIX. 72/2 This defect is overcome by Zumpe's ‘mopstick’ damper. |
3. slang. a. A stupid man.
b. U.S. (See
quot. 1915.)
| 1886 H. Baumann Londinismen 111/2. 1915 World (N.Y.) Sunday Suppl. 9 May 14/3 Mopstick, one who loafs around a cheap saloon or barrel house and cleans up the place for drinks. |