mash n.1
1. (US) a blow, a hit [mash v. (2)].
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Sportsman 5 Nov. 2/1: Notes on News [...] O’Baldwin, the ‘Irish Giant,’ who is considerable of a bully [...] threatened the infringer with a ‘Mash on his nose’ . | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | (con. 1920s) Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 379: The only thing they needed was a good hard mash in the puss. | |
| World I Never Made 392: He didn’t know how close he’d come to a mash in the puss. |
2. a person with whom one is infatuated; thus have a mash on, to make advances towards; make a mash on, to be the object of someone’s infatuation [mash v. (1)].
| Sporting Times 22 Nov. 1/4: Blobbs [...] had been seen betaking himself [...] into the East End of London. ‘A mash down there,’ thought the Shifter. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bulletin (Sydney) 25 Apr. 17/4: David and his ’mash’ had started out on a little trip to St. Kilda, and he was doing his best among the push at a ticket window of the Flinders-street station. | |
| ‘High School Sl.’ in N.Y. Dispatch 31 May 7: If my mash don’t come round, I guess I will come over. | |
| Liza of Lambeth (1966) 52: I see your mash as I was comin’ along this mornin’. | |
| More Gal’s Gossip 166: A position which enabled him to keep on spitting on the bald head of his wife’s mash. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 13 May 4/7: And finally, how is your cash? / Send a few ‘jim’ to Your Mash. | |
| Magnet 27 Aug. 23: If they took pity on him, and were kind, he immediately thought [...] that he had made what he called a ‘mash’. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Truth (Wellington) 6 Apr. 7/5: Alexandra [...] didn’t mind Ned’s mash so long as she was kept in some outhouse. | |
| ‘The Joy Ride’ in Backblock Ballads 103: An’ Rose – (Ah! how ’er eyes did stare) / Rose was my speshul mash. |
3. a dandy [abbr. masher n. (3)].
| [perf. Vesta Tilley] The New Policeman 🎵 Two ladies with a boozy mash I saw - claimed half their plunder. | |
| Arthur’s 279: Ow, Dinah, Dinah, Dinah, Doo! [...] I’m yer faller; / Not very rich; But trew as pitch: No Broadway mash / With heaps of cash; But just your Joe. |
4. (orig. US) an infatuation, a crush on someone [mash v. (1)].
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 11 May 2/3: He came, he saw in all her stage glory, the betwitching Genevieve Stanley [...] It was an unmitigated case of ‘mash’ on his part. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 28 Feb. 13/3: At Tumberumba young ladies are scarce and dear. So, when a fair one of ravishing charms came to visit a station near by, a local youth (a very dude, indeed), immediately established what he considered a firm mash. | |
| (con. 1860s) On the War Path 86: She seems to have made a mash on John Smith. | |
| ‘Joe Wilson’s Courtship’ in Roderick (1972) 546: I see you’ve made a new mash, Joe. | |
| ‘The Lily of St Leonards’ in Roderick (1972) 802: I’d call it a mash; but I wouldn’t if I was you. Yeh don’t know her. | |
| ‘The Intro’ in Songs of a Sentimental Bloke 23: I’m yappin’ to me cobber uv me mash . . . / I’ve done me dash! | |
| Bottom Dogs 223: Morris believed that if it wasn’t for his teeth [...] the girls would get a mash on him. |
5. an admirer [mash v. (1)].
| Cincinnati Enquirer 7 Sept. 10/7: The mash is the party willing to be mashed, and who is generally made to pay for the pleasure of the mash in a good round sum. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Aberdeen Jrnl 12 Apr. 2/6: A sweet maiden of seventeen summers [...] Among her ‘mashers’ [...] is Gus Prettyboy. | |
| ‘An Easterly Breeze’ Sporting Times 10 Apr. 1/2: Her only available mash / Was John Willie, a thinker of beautiful thinks, / But no reckless expender of cash. | |
| ‘Chivalry in Carbon County’ in Score by Innings (2004) 331: Pansy has another mash. | |
| ‘The Boss Tramp’ in Hobo’s Hornbook 54: I had a cross-eyed daughter, / And she was just the cheese. / Mashes! why she had ’em by the barrel, / Each one a pimple-faced hick. |
6. sexual contact; an act of seduction.
| Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 30 Sept. 3/2: Didn’t we say Laura Don had captured an author [...] And who do you think it is? Oscar Wilde. Great Scott! what a mash, Laura! [...] [S]he owns Oscar, body, soul, brain, legs, silk stockings, knee-breeches, pumps, sunflower and all. | |
| Dead Bird (Sydney) 27 July 1/1: A little maiden in the park; / A little mash — a little lark; / A little kiss — a promise maybe; / And now? Her mother keeps the baby. | |
| [perf. Marie Lloyd] The French Lady’s Maid 🎵 Flirt, Mon Dieu! make no mistake, at ze mash she take ze cake. | |
| Truth (Sydney) 3 Feb. 8/3: Ancient buffers are the safest — / And they awl have plenty cash — / Witch they've got to shell out handsome / If they want a little mash. | |
| Pall Mall Gaz. 24 Sept. 9/1: Nex Momin I ad a Chanst of Doin a Bit Mash my Own for I Found Jones in the Drawrin Room with a Duster. | |
| Truth (Melbourne) 7 Feb. 5/3: Countless couples [...] all out for ‘mash’ [...] From early dusk canoodling couples make their way down Alexandra-avenue. | |
 | Abie the Agent 2 Nov. [synd. cartoon strip] They’ll think I’m a stranger what’s trying to make a mesh! |
7. in attrib. use of sense 3.
| Broadway Brevities Dec 18: THE WORLD WOULD BE BETTER WITHOUT: Beards. Jurors who’d believe the testimony of a homely woman in a mash case. |
8. pertaining to (illicitly distilled) alcohol [abbr].
(a) (US) illicitly distilled whisky, esp. prison-distilled whisky.
| Westerfelt 141: A gallon o’ mash — this jug jest holds that amount [...] the only sound for a moment was the gurgling of the whiskey as it ran into the jug. | |
| One-Way Ride 130: Captain John Stege, in a police raid in the neighborhood of Genna headquarters [...] seized 7,500 barrels of mash. | |
| Halo For Satan (1949) 48: Back in the days when Taylor Street smelled of sour mash [...] so thick around Halstead Street the school kids could get a cheap jag from inhaling the air. | |
| I, Mobster 45: I told them where to buy the sugar and the other stuff for the mash. | |
| Makes Me Wanna Holler (1995) 173: Mash, homemade whiskey that some inmates sold. | |
| Mr Blue 39: Each gallon required a pound of sugar, a pinch of yeast and any of several things for mash to ferment. | |
| Other Side of the Wall: Prisoner’s Dict. July 🌐 Mash: Homemade cell wine, also called hooch or pruno. |
(b) (US prison) the ingredients of prison-made alcohol.
| Prison Sl. 70: Mash All the ingredients used to make ‘hootch,’ such as fruit pulp, raisins or potatoes. Mash includes everything but the liquid. |
9. (US/Aus.) sentimental nonsense [but note mush n.1 (2)].
| Aus. Lang. 128: Kidney-pie, kidstakes, macaroni, mash, bilgewater and borak cover the same meaning of misleading chatter. | |
| I Travelled a Lonely Land (1957) 235/2: mash – foolishness. |
10. (W.I., also mash-mash) small change [the larger coin or note has been ‘mashed’ into smaller pieces/values].
![[WI]](/static/img/flags/wi.png "West Indies") | cited in Dict. Jam. Eng. (1980). |
11. (US campus) sexual activity that stops short of intercourse, kissing and foreplay [mash v. (1)].
| College Sl. Dict. 🌐 mash [U. of Neb. at Linc.] some sort of sexual activity. |
12. (UK black) a gun [an alt. def: abbrev. SE machete, is dismissed].
| www.reddit.com/r/hiphopheads Grime Terminology Guide 🌐 Skeng/Leng/Strap/Mash/Stick - Gun. | |
| ‘Hookahs’ 🎵 Dotty or mash, make that crash. | |
| ‘No Hook’ 🎵 They see Horrid1 and they panic / He backed out the mash try slap it. | |
| ‘Tension’ 🎵 Who’s got a mash? New plate, cah the dots too vintage. |
In compounds
see sense 8 above.
1. (US) a love letter.
| Diary of a Daly Débutante (1910) 238: He had what is called a ‘mash letter’ from a schoolgirl fourteen years old . | |
| Turnover Club 134: He is greatly afflicted by that dreadful bane of fine-looking actors, yclept the ‘mash note’ in the profession . | |
| S.F. Call 20 Dec. 23/5: The mind and hearts of the silly senders of mash letters. | |
| Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 37: She hoped no woman had become smitten with her Dave’s good looks, and sent him a mash note. | |
| S.F. Call 12 July 25/2: Aunt’s Mash Letters [...] I have received more ‘mash’ notes since I’ve played the part of the old spinster then I ever received in all my life. | |
| Darling Downs Gaz. (Qld) 10 Aug. 3/3: Mash notes from [sic] one of the penalties of popularity on the stage. | |
| Damsel in Distress (1961) 22: Excuse me while I grapple with the correspondence. I’ll bet half of these are mash notes. | |
| Dly Mail (Brisbane) 24 June 11/6: ‘The day of the mash note has gone,’ says Lionel Atwill — well known, as a leading man in Australia [...] ‘Where an actor once found twenty gushing letters in the mail he now discovers two or three critical notes’. | |
| ‘Hurry Kane’ in Coll. Short Stories (1941) 92: They wrote him mash notes with fake names signed to them. | |
| Iron Man 85: That boy’s in a good racket [...] He gets mash notes by the ton. | |
| Sun (Sydney) 10 Nov. 7/2: Studios are now measuring romantic stars' fan rating by the number of ‘mash’ note proposals they receive each month. | |
| On Broadway 10 Jan. [synd. col.] The season’s mash note was sent to Lilli Palmer [...] by critic G.J. Nathan. | |
| letter 24 Dec. in Crowther Don’t Tread on Me (1987) 327: The hard-featured saleslady was wrapping them up with appropriate mash-notes to each bimbo. | |
| (con. 1962) Enchanters 28: Mash notes, cheesecake pix, and snapped pubic hair. |
2. (US) an amicable letter, but without amatory focus.
| Big Boat to Bye-Bye 31: The couple had their attorney send a friendly mash note [...] suggesting that they be allowed to match WNET’s deal. |
3. in fig. use, a begging letter.
| I, Fatty 245: I decided to compose a mash note to the ex-postmaster. |
a brewer.
| Sl. and Its Analogues. |
In phrases
(Aus./N.Z.) to make a pass (at), to attempt seduction.
| N.Z. Observer and Freelance (Auckland) 29 Aug. 9/1: Tony fancies he will do quite a mash among the girls with his long-tailed coat. | |
| N.Z. Observer and Free Lance (Auckland) 20 Mar. 23/1: G. looked charming doing a mash with the Clarendon barmaid. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 48: Mashing, ‘going to do a mash,’ to parade the streets for show and forming the acquaintance of some admirer. |
1. (US) to ‘make a pass’, to seduce someone.
| Baled Hay 135: Two Laramie girls on horseback yanking a fly drummer along the street at a gallop, because he tried to make a mash on them. | |
| ‘College Widow’ in Verses and Jingles (1911) 7: For I made a mash, and knocked him out of sight. | |
| ‘Dialect Words From Southern Indiana’ in DN III:ii 121: make a mash, v. phr. To inspire affection. ‘I made a mash on him.’. | |
| Alaska Citizen 28 Aug. 7/2: They could glide forty times around a hall without losing step [...] and the result was that they both made a mash. | |
| Dict. Amer. Sl. |
2. (US campus) to please a teacher.
| ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 45: mash, n. [...] In phrase ‘make a mash,’ to please a professor, i.e. to give him a favorable impression of one’s ability. |
looking for a sexual conquest.
| Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa (1887) 52: Pa is on the mash himself, and he looked at her and smiled. | |
| ‘Our Little Nipper’ 🎵 I loves to see ’im cuttin’ of a dash, / A walkin’ down our alley on the mash. | |
| Bushranger’s Sweetheart 49: Fred’s on the mash to-night. | |
| In the Blood 143: I’m often on the mash, an’ I’m sometimes short of cash. | |
| ‘Ginger, You’re Balmy’ [monologue] Girls they all say ‘Ginger’s on the mash’. |
SE in slang uses
In compounds
(W.I.) toothless.
| ‘Iteration as a Word-forming Device in Jamaican Folk Speech’ in AS XXXII:1 52: Nouns formed from verbs: dip-dip, mash-mash. |
(W.I.) a toothless mouth.
| Official Dancehall Dict. 33: Mash-mout the appearance of the mouth without teeth: u. de mash mout bwoy. |