Green’s Dictionary of Slang

mawkes n.

also mauk, maux
[malkin n.]

1. a prostitute.

[UK]T. Lodge Wits Miserie IV 44: But touch me hir with a pint a sack, & a French crowne, if you like any of hir frie; Wel (saith she) you seeme to be an honest gentleman, go prettie maid & shew him a chamber; now maux you were best be vnmannerly & not vse him well.
[UK]Otway Cheats of Scapin Epilogue: The rugged Soldier [...] There hold impertinent chat with tawdry Maux.
[UK]Defoe Street Robberies Considered 25: I began to keep, and one or other, I had the clever’st Mauks in Town.

2. a slatternly woman.

[UK]New Canting Dict. n.p.: mawks an Abbreviation of the Word Malkin [i.e. ‘a badly-dressed woman’].
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Mawkes. A Vulgar Slattern.
[UK]Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) .
[UK]Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1788].
[UK]Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1788].
[US]Matsell Vocabulum.
[US] ‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 455: Mawk, A slovenly whore.
[US]Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 127: Mawk. – A slovenly, unclean harlot.
[US]Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 808: mawk – A slovenly, unclean harlot.

In derivatives