meeching, ppl. a.
Also meaching, meachin, me(e)chin.
[var. of mitching ppl. a.; now dial. and the preferred spelling in the U.S.]
Skulking, furtive; mean.
| 1610 Beaumont & Fletcher Scornf. Lady (1616) v. i. 9 Sure shee has some Meeching raskall in her house. 1792 Mass. Spy 22 Mar. 1/1 There is a kind of meaching souls in the world. a 1800 Spirit of Farmer's Museum (1801) 287 We observed, however, that he had lantern jaws and a meaching look. 1836 T. C. Haliburton Clockmaker 1st Ser. (1837) xv. 140 Father goes up to him, lookin as soft as dough, and as meechin as you please. 1844 ‘J. Slick’ High Life N.Y. II. 219, I gin her hand a leetle mechin shake. 1869 Harper's Mag. 193/2 Of old the contrast between the Southerner's proud self-assertion and the Northerner's meeching humility was inexpressibly mortifying to every thoughtful inhabitant of the free States. 1884 W. D. Howells Rise S. Lapham (1885) ix. 153 I'm not going to have you do anything that will make you feel meeching afterward. 1944 H. Wentworth Amer. Dial. Dict. 383/1 Meech,..1926, Maine, ‘He was so meechin' that butter wouldn't melt in his mouth.’ Common. |