Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a flannel shirt.

1650

Fuller Pisgah Sight of Palestine (1869) 521: As we say mourning shirts, it being customary for men in sadness, to spare the pains of their laundresses .

a white hat with a black band.

1840		K. Meadows Heads of the People 365: Hats off —down there! — you in the white hat and crape — you in butcher's mourning — bonnet him!
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict. 105: Butcher’s Mourning a white hat with a black mourning hat-band. Probably because, under any circumstances, a butcher would rather not wear a black hat. White hats and black bands have, however, become genteel.
1891		F.W. Carew Autobiog. of a Gipsey 410: A curly-brimmed white beaver hat with a black band – known in sporting parlance as ‘butcher’s mourning’.

(US) of a white male, to have sexual intercourse with a black female.

1935

J. Conroy World to Win 192: I ain’t never dressed it in mourning yet. Not while they’s a single white woman left, even if she’s a hundred years old.

a pair of black eyes.

1819		‘One of the Fancy’ Tom Crib’s Memorial to Congress xix: [note] No pugilist can be considered worth anything, till he has had his peepers taken measure of for a full suit of mourning, or in common language, has received a pair of black eyes .
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 111: [note] In being turned out of the panny, got her ogles took measure of for a suit of mourning.
1827		‘The Mill’ British Minstrelsy 110: There’s a wap on his tater-trap – he’s made his box o’ dominoes chatter. [...] Baker shows first claret and a graper – he’s taking measure of his eyes for a suit of mourning.
1834		Satirist (London) 5 Feb. 5/3: [E]ventually they made him measure his length on the floor, through their exertions to put his eyes into a suit of morning [sic].
1834		‘The Mill’ Museum of Mirth 45/1: [as 1827].
1841		Sun. Flash (NY) 19 Sept. n.p.: ‘Pitching into’ Miss Muggins, one of whose ogles she swiftly measured for a suit of mourning.
1842		Flash (NY) 31 July n.p.: Lieut M.... with both eyes in a new suit, the bridge of his nose permanently broken and several of his front teeth disloged.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 50: Mourning,‘a full suit of mourning,’ two black eyes [ibid.] 95: [W]hole mourning, two black eyes.
1944		Post (Lanarks) 23 Apr. 6/3: Full suit of mourning — two black eyes.

a single black eye.

1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 21: No woman is to be admitted in half mourning, or those that have business on both sides of the street.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1888		H. King Savage London 18: Billy’s eyes were in ‘half-mourning.’ He had hardly recovered from the effects of a Sunday carouse, and to use his own expression, was ‘stale drunk’.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 34: Half Mourning, a black eye.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks.

1. having a black eye; thus have one’s eyes in mourning, to have a pair of black eyes.

1820		J.H. Reynolds Fancy 37: Her eyes were all sweetly in mourning.
1828		N.-Y. Enquirer 15 Apr. 2/4: The Pink’s left peeper, closed; both the Coalman’s in mourning.
1832		S. Warren Diary of a Late Physician in Works (1854) III 86: His left eye was sent off into deep mourning, which threatened to last for weeks.
1835		G. Kent Modern Flash Dict. 24: Ogles in mourning – black eyes.
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 10 June 2/4: [His] light plastered hair contrasted strangely with the mourning into which one of his eyes liad been thrown by the successful application of Mr. Keough’s boots to the optic.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open [as cit. 1835].
1851		Bell’s Life in Sydney 4 Oct. 1/3: Hayes had caught Master Ned on the right eye, which seemed inclined to follow suit with the left, already in deep mourning.
1851		Manchester Spy (NH) 28 June n.p.: We would inform thew young man who insulted those three young ladies [...] that the next time he tries it he will fare worse [...] His mourning eyes become him well.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 127: in mourning. The eyes blackened and closed up.
1864		H.D. Miles Tom Sayers 33: Nat [...] showed his left peeper in deep mourning.
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 270: The victorious Jimmy, with two teeth knocked out and one eye in mourning, not to mention the general appearance of his ‘mug,’ was congratulated by his numerous friends.
1886		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 17 Apr. 2/4: Officer O’Brien, his left optic in mourning and his back dislocated.
1890		H. Nisbet ‘Bail Up!’ 155: Followed by his brother in affliction, with his mourning eyes.
1894		‘The Rocks Push Eisteddfod’ in Bird o’ Freedom (Sydney) in J. Murray Larrikins (1973) 88: There was not a Rocks lad who was not a mass of bumps, / Whose eyes were not ‘in mourning’, and whose nose was not in lumps.
1902		Truth (Sydney) 31 Aug. 8/3: And one heye, my heye, that optick / It were dressed in black, to mourn.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 2 Nov. 6/1: Jack put his eye in the road of one of Dick’s right rips. His peeper is still in mourning.
1909		Van Loan ‘The Fresh Guy’ in Big League (2004) 28: One of his eyes was still in mourning.
1926		Wood & Goddard Dict. Amer. Sl.
1927		H.C. Witwer Classics in Sl. 32: A brief visit at a barber’s, which paints the deep mournin’ off of one my eyes.
[1929		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 117: Listening to the guy with the mourning glim tell how he got it].
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 43/1: Full mourning, two black (discoloured) eyes.
1950		P. Hoskins No Hiding Place! 190/2: In Mourning. Black eyes.

2. (W.I./Jam.) dirty.

1873

C. Rampini Letters from Jamaica 87: Very dirty spectacles are ‘glasses in mourning for their grandmothers.’.

3. in fig. use.

1827

Egan Anecdotes of the Turf, the Chase etc. 67: Never again [...] could he put the ogles of the Ring in mourning.

4. (UK society) having dirty fingernails, edging the hands like the black border of mourning paper; thus (20C+) you’re in mourning for the cat, you have dirty fingernails.

1937–84		Partridge DSUE (1984) 758: from ca. 1880.
1977		G. Melly Rum, Bum and Concertina (1978) 69: His nails were, as my mother said, ‘in mourning’.
1993		R. Doyle Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha 5: Look at your hands, she said – Your fingernails! My God, Patrick, you must be in mourning for the cat.

see under peeper n.