mopsy
(ˈmɒpsɪ)
Also 7–8 mopsie, 8 mapsie, 9 mopsey.
[f. mop n.1; the ending -sy is common dial. in terms of endearment, as in babsy, ducksy: cf. the pet names Betsy, Patsy.]
1. Used as a term of endearment; a pretty child; a darling, a sweetheart. ? Obs.
| 1582 Stanyhurst æneis i. (Arb.) 41 Thee mopsy [sc. the infant Ascanius] her phantasye lurcheth. 1583 Stubbes Anat. Abus. i. (1879) 147 Borrowed for the most parte of their pretie Mopsies & loouing Besses. 1705 Vanbrugh Mistake iv. i, Jacin. But don't expect I'll follow her Example. San. You would, Mopsie, if I'd let you. 1706 E. Ward Hud. Rediv. x. v. 10 These mix'd with Brewers, and their Mopsies. |
2. A slatternly, untidy woman. Also attrib. or as adj. (Sense passing into that of mop n.4 in some examples.)
| a 1700 B. E. Dict. Cant. Crew, Mopsie, a Dowdy, or Homely Woman. c 1785 John Thompson's Man 14 If you wed an old mapsie, murlie..deformed Creature to be thy Wife. 1800 Lamb Let. to Coleridge You encouraged that mopsey, Miss Wesley, to dance after you, in the hope of having her nonsense put into a nonsensical Anthology. 1916 A. Bennett These Twain xviii. 406, I always knew that girl was a mopsy slut. 1958 J. Carew Wild Coast iii. 44 He don't have juice in his back to fill up a mopsy with delight. 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 14 Mar. 140/5 Poor Swann's pain and frustration..are a simpler matter, Odette de Crécy being the most commonplace of lying mopsies and a born torturer of the sensitive. |
3. ‘A woolly variety of dog’.
| 1855 Ogilvie Suppl. |