muffineer
(mʌfɪˈnɪə(r))
[f. muffin + -eer1.]
1. A small castor with a perforated top for sprinkling salt or sugar on muffins.
| 1806–7 J. Beresford Miseries Hum. Life (1826) ix. xli, As you are shaking a muffineer..the cover springing off. 1821 Syd. Smith Wks. (1859) I. 316/2 Is this Mr. Thomas Hope?..he who meditated on muffineers and planned pokers? 1841 Dickens Barn. Rudge lxx, With regard to the expense..two or three silver tea or coffee pots, with something additional for drink (such as a muffineer, or toast-rack) would more than cover it. 1897 Daily News 17 Sept. 5/2 Silver and turquoise inlaid muffineers. |
2. ‘A covered dish to keep toasted muffins hot’.
The sense perh. never existed, but is the only one recognized in Dicts. before the Century Dict. 1890.
| 1858 in Simmonds Dict. Trade. 1860 in Worcester; and in later Dicts. |
3. nonce-uses. a. A seller of muffins. b. A muffin-bell.
| 1830 Fraser's Mag. II. 450 If the thin small voice of the muffineer's ring be justifiable, why is not the baker let loose upon us? 1859 Sala Tw. round Clock (1861) 23 A bell to which Great Tom of Lincoln..and our own defunct ‘Big Ben’, are but as tinkling muffineers. |