Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a person in authority, a self-important person .

1832		in Nation LII 414/3: The secret bulletin [...] has extensively circulated among the Knights of Kadosh and the Most Worshipful Mug-Wumps of the Cabletow [DA].
1840		Great Western 4 July ‘Leader’ n.p.: Then the great mugwump was delivered of a speech which the faithful loudly applauded [F&H].
1877		J.H. Bromley in N.Y. Trib. 16 Feb. n.p.: John A. Logan is the Head Centre, the Hub, the King Pin, the Main Spring, Mogul, and Mugwump of the final plot .
1884		Belfast News Letter 26 May 5/7: ‘Mugwump’ . . . is synonymous with the New York term ‘big bug,’ or the Washington expression ‘swellhead’ .
1885		St Paul Dly Globe (MO) 30 Dec. 4/4: Webster’s dictionary will admit the words ‘boycott,’ ‘dude’ and ‘mugwump.’ Fancy the Westers [...] making the acquaintance of the dude and mugwump.
1893		F. Harris ‘Gulmore, the Boss’ in Elder Conklin & Other Stories (1895) 174: The building of the branch line South has brought a lot of Irish here – they’re all Democrats – and there’s quite a number of Mugwumps.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 4 Mar. 1/5: Are words are cant of thumb-rule, / Where mug-wumps and scum rule.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 158: There aint a man in New York who [...] aint makin’ money through a broken law, an’ these mugwumps aint any exception.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 4 Dec. 1/1: The Mugwump Ministry are reaching out for the insufferable Scotch sabbath [...] Sunday boating, train-riding, park-haunting and cuddling will be prohibited shortly.
1910		Sun. Times (Perth) 13 Feb. 2nd sect. 1/4: The latest move of the municipal mugwumps is the application of the ‘move-on’ clause to the [...] seaside.
1919		J. Buchan Mr Standfast (1930) 495: He would get himself disliked in the popular papers, but all the mugwumps would admire his moral courage.
1925		N.Y. Times 10 May n.p.: The royal red Indian mug-wump, the chief, was copiously red-blooded [DA].
1940		E. Curry Hysterical Hist. of Aus. 204: Of course, such erudite little mugwumps as you are all know what Utopia means, don’t you?

2. an obnoxious, foolish person.

1885		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 28 Nov. 2/2: A mugwump is [...] every sad-eyed and sheepish looking individual you meet.
1891		M.D. Landon Eli Perkins: Thirty Years of Wit 278: He wasn’t anything. He was – well, he was just a mugwump!
1899		Independent (Honolulu) 13 Jan. 2/2: A is for Armstrong, just so [...] / Some call him a chump / And others a mugwump.
1908		Vanguard Library 31 Mar. 2: How should I know, you half-baked mugwump?
1920		Marvel 26 June 11: Suppose our judge and his hangman are such pudden-headed idiots as your mugwump of a sergeant?
1934		Derby Dly Teleg. 15 Feb. 8/3: The biggest ‘mugwump’ of all was the man who forgot his plus-fours.
1942		E. Cross Tailor and Ansty 101: Am Bostha! you’d search the earth before you would find an equal pack of mugwumps of bladdergashes!
1959		A. Sinclair My Friend Judas (1963) 22: You moronic mugwump.

3. in attrib. use of sense 2.

1896		Falkirk Herald 8 Feb. 2/6: You are deceived by the views which obtain in Wall Street and among New York mugwump pressmen.
1906		Dundee Courier 9 Feb. 5/4: Aristocratic nomenclature [...] ‘Guinea-Pig London’, ‘Bumptious Birmingham,’ ‘Mugwump Manchester’ would all look good with a title in front of them.

4. in political terms, one whose vote may go either way and is thus untrustworthy; thus Mugwumpery n., the attitude of such voters; extnded to non-political contexts (see cite 1904).

1884		N.Y. Eve. Post 20 June n.p.: We have yet to see a Blaine organ which speaks of the Independent Republicans otherwise than as Pharisees, hypocrites, dudes, mugwumps, transcendentalists .
1886		Life 6 286/1: [title] An Idyll of Mugwumpery.
1887		F. Francis Jr Saddle and Mocassin 188: I am uncertain what the burro’s politics were; some of the boys asserted that he was a Mugwump.
1895		E. Townsend Chimmie Fadden Explains 81: His Whiskers and Mr. Burton and Mr. Paul used t’ jaw and jaw bout politics and bosses and Mugwumps.
1898		G. Smith is the Constitution Outworn? 263: Mugwumpery " is not a mere mutiny or a craze ; it is a sane, and likely to prove a lasting, revolt of independent patriotism against the autocracy of the " boss.
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 355: Besides the two regular parties, and the mugwump-independents [...] the laborites would try again.
1904		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 28 Dec. 1/1: Moral Mugwumpery. The daily press Is now Buttering from a severe.attack of moral mugwumps.
1908		L.A. Herald 5 Jan. 46/2: What is a mugwump? [...] People generally define him as a disgruntled politician.
1910		Truth (Perth) 25 June 8/8: A mugwump, Mr Norton, / Are an undecided man, / Who can never make his mind up / On to any settled plan.
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 203: mugwump, political term of disparagement.
1946		Tuscaloosa (AL) News 31 Mar. 4/7: A few moments after Secretary Wallace made his pun, he hastened to add that he himself had been a mugwump [DA].
1984		Wall Street Journal 3 Apr. n.p.: Liberal Republicans called Mugwumps defected to his camp [R].

5. (Polari) a bisexual.

2023

R. Milward Man-Eating Typewriter 169: Expats, stray cats. Magick carpets. Perverts and mugwumps.