Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a person of the lowest origin.

1651		T. Randolph Hey for Honesty II i: Ha, you old muck-worms!
1664		R. Howard The Committee II i: These muck-worms will have Earth enough to stop their mouths with one day.
1670		J. Eachard Contempt of the Clergy in Arber Garner VII 298: It is a great hazard if he be not counted a caterpillar! a muckworm! a very earthly minded man! [F&H].
c.1685		ballad title Roxburghe Ballads The Doting Old Dad, or the unequal match betwixt a rich muck-worm of fourscore and ten, and a young lass scarce nineteen .
1695		Congreve Love for Love II i: Ouns, whose son are you? How were you engendered, muckworm?
1706		Rare and Good News for Wives in City and Country 3: He must be no other than one of those pittyful Muck-worms, that all day go with Breasts unbutton’d.
1722		S. Centlivre Artifice Act III: Life! what is thy Life, Muck-worm, to clean a Room?
1730		J. Miller Humours of Oxford II i: I’ll have you [...] Rusticated, – Expell’d – I’ll have you [...] where you’ll be devill’d, Muckworm, you will.
1748		J. Thomson Castle of Indolence 26: Here you a Muckworm of the town might see weeds.
1764		Foote Patron in Works (1799) I 333: Are pine-apples for such muckworms as he?
1775		K. OHara Two Misers I i: Infernal muck-worms!
1895		H.B. Marriott-Watson in New Rev. July 7: You muck-worm, you – I’ll slit your gizzard, you —.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1.

1912

Mail (Adelaide) 3 Aug. 2: Mr O’Malley’s muckworm oratory is calculated to lead to his destruction.

3. a miserly person, a ‘money-grubber’ [further play on muck n.¹ (1)].

1598		J. Hall Virgidemiarum (1599) Bk IV 73: Ech muck-worme will be rich with lawlesse gaine.
1651		T. Randolph Hey for Honesty II iii: I think there’s not an honest man, But drossy, earthy muckworm-minded vassals.
[1655		Mercurius Fumigosus 60 11-18 July 7: An old Usurers maid [...] took the ambition on her to ascend a Peartree, the fruit of which Tree, the Covetous muck-worme her Master, with his four Eyes, had been telling every Day since May.
c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Muckworm a covetous Wretch.
1705		E. Hickeringill Priest-Craft II 40: These High-flyers, one would think, should not be such groveling Muck-worms.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1738		Swift Polite Conversation 87: Pray Madam, when did you last see Sir Peter Muckworm?
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1794		R. Cumberland Jew I i: Here comes one that supersedes all other visitors – old Sheva, the rich Jew, the merest muck-worm in the city of London.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 115: ‘Muck-worm.’ A miser.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1863		T. Taylor Ticket-Of-Leave Man Act I: Never heed that muck-worm!
1881		Trumble Sl. Dict. (1890).
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 51: Muck Worm, a miser.
1899		Dublin Wkly Nation 17 June 11/6: He is never content with the skimpy allowance of one word [...] He is never penny-fathher or muck-worm with his words.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 207: muck-worm, -grubber, a miser. ‘A muck-worm never has many friends.’.
1929		D.H. Lawrence ‘Fight!’ Pansies 29: The money-muck [...] and the money-muck-worms, the extant powers that have got you in keep.
1973		(ref. to 1890s) ‘Gloss. of Larrikin Terms’ in J. Murray Larrikins 203: muckworm: a miser.

4. one who is mentally or morally degraded.

1902

H. Baumann ‘Sl. Ditty’ Londonismen (2nd edn) v: Piratical fakers / Of bosh by the acres, / These muck-worms of trash / Cut, oh, a great dash.