mauley, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

mauley n.

also maulie, mauly, mawley, morley

[SE maul, to handle roughly or Shelta malya, ult. transposition of Gaelic lamh, hand]

1. the hand, a fist.

1789		implied in slang the mauleys
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795) n.p.: morleys hands.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Mawley. A hand.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 219: Knowing the use of their morleys, fear is out of the question.
1821		J. Burrowes Life in St George’s Fields 21: Every thing but what was capable of passing the throat was well secured from the mauleys.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 415: Tip us your flipper* [* Tip us your flipper — your mawley — your daddle, or your thieving hook, are terms made use of as occasions may suit the company in which they are introduced, to signify a desire to shake hands].
c.1830		‘Smith’s Frolic’ in Holloway & Black II (1979) 61: For down in my groper her morley I got.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 158: Lalla’s right mauley was doubled up to his right ear.
1834		(con. 1737–9) W.H. Ainsworth Rookwood (1857) 258: Vith mawleys raised, Tom bent his back, / As if to plant a heavy thwack.
1834		Ely’s Hawk & Buzzard (NY) Sept. 6 n.p.: Sam pulled his mawley away and smiled .
1842		Wkly Rake (NY) 3 Sept. n.p.: Hammer amelt his mawleys, and cried out, ‘Enough!’ .
1845		Bell’s Life in Sydney 27 Sept. 3/1: He deliberately walked from his corner, and tipping his dexter mawley into the daddle of his adversary, declared himself incompetent at present to compete further.
1845		R.S. Surtees Hillingdon Hall III 274: Shakin’ his mawley at England, [Napoleon] swore he’d pitch into her like twenty thousand bricks.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. I 12: You will have it then, my covey; you’re mighty fond of my mawley!
1848		Bell’s Life in Sydney 26 Feb. 1/4: It’s no go that ere vay [e.g. honesty] vile I’ve a morley.
1852		Kendal Mercury 17 Apr. 6/1: A fogle he’d filch from the queerest old bloak, / Mind vere Tom laid his mauley it vasn’t a joke.
1853		N.Y. Clipper n.p.: [H]e tried a second time, but only ran his nose against Donnelly's left mawley .
1857		Bell’s Life in Victoria (Melbourne) 3 Jan. 3/2: [B]eing always pretty ready with his mawleys [he] pitched into them.
1857		advert in ‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue (1857) 45: Mr. H. nabs the chance of putting his customers awake, that he has just made his escape from Russia, not forgetting to clap his mawleys upon some of the right sort of Ducks to make single and double-backed Slops for gentlemen in black.
1862		Bury & Norwich Post 23 Dec. 8/3: Who Killed Cock-sparrow? ‘I,’ said three men of Crawley, / ‘With my club in my mawley’.
1862		Golden Age (Queanbeyan, NSW) 4 Sept. 3/2: [W]ith dauntless breast and fistic mawley he tore the laurels from the hero of twenty fights, the Veteran Scroggins .
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 49/1: How did you manage to get your ‘mauley’ on them [i.e. jewels] in the dark, eh? [Ibid.] 157/2: Advancing to us with a short black pipe in his gills, he held out his big ‘mauly’.
1866		Night Side of N.Y. 83: Regular hammer-and-tongs prize fights, in which the combatants have their ‘mawleys’ encased in the ‘mufflers’.
1877		‘The Fashionable Coaley’ in Laughing Songster 100: Comes up to me, in all his dirt – / And offered me his mawley!
1878		C. Hindley Life and Times of James Catnach 129: They slapped a pick-axe into vone of my mauleys.
1883		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 17 Nov. 10/3: Conroy sprang from his seat [...] throwing up his mawleys without even indulging in the customary shake.
1888		‘Rolf Boldrewood’ Robbery Under Arms (1922) 1: It take a good man to put me on my back, or stand up to me with the gloves, or the naked mauleys.
1889		‘’Arry on the Battle of Life’ in Punch 21 Sept. in P. Marks (2006) 137: You’ve got to be fly with your mawleys.
1895		Mirror of Life 19 Jan. 11/3: Her mother went out washing at a fosheroon [sic] a day, / And couldn’t she go it with her mawleys.
1899–1901		H. Lawson ‘“Water Them Geraniums”’ in Roderick (1972) 583: Don’t touch Mrs Wilson’s baby with them dirty maulies.
1900		Sporting Times 31 Mar. 2/1: He planted his clump-soles wide apart, smote upon his breast, shook his dexter mawley at the receding rattler.
1911		‘Madge The Society Detective’ in Roberts et al. Old Sleuth’s Freaky Female Detectives (1990) 106/1: She used her fists, she did, and I never see a man who could use his mauleys any better.
1919		E. Dyson ‘Bricks’ in ‘Hello, Soldier!’ 34: Me wild, a rat hole in me lung, but in me mauley, too.
1921		(ref. to mid-19C) Essex Newsman 10 Sept. 1/3: I was [...] amused by the quaint language used by my predecessors in the Ring [...] ‘The Nobbler dashed in his left mawley and landed on the British Oak’s kissing-trap [...] knocking out two of his front rails’.
1927		(con. 1835–40) P. Herring Bold Bendigo 4: I’ve tried to teach you not to put the last foot first, an’ not to lead off wi’ the wrong mawley.
1936		J. Curtis Gilt Kid 173: Keep your mauleys off.
1946		R.L. Bellem ‘Latin Blood’ in Speed Detective Aug. 🌐 I strode forward with my maulies bailed [sic].
1952		Beckley Post-Herald (WV) 11 Dec. 9/1: He is supposed to guard against [...] missing frequently with this ‘maulie’ or that one.
2001		P. Bailey Three Queer Lives 177: She would bang her ‘maulies’ (her term for ‘fists’) on the table.

2. a finger, usu. in pl.

1937–84

Partridge DSUE (1984) 727: ca. 1845.

3. a signature; handwriting.

1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 312/1: The ‘swells’ [...] ‘come down with a couter’ (sovereign) if they ‘granny the mauley’ (perceive the signature) of a brother officer or friend.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1977		D. Powis Signs of Crime 192: Mauley [...] one’s signature: ‘I put my mauley on it.’ [...] Mauley Handwriting.

In compounds

mawley sleeve (n.)

a glove.

1840

Flash Mirror 18: He has got such a slap up assortment of [...] body bags, gam kivers, fork linings, mawley sleeves, &c .

In phrases

fam the mauley (v.)

to shake hands.

1811

Lex. Balatronicum n.p.: Mawley. A hand. [...] Fam the mawley; shake hands.

knight of the mawley (n.)

see under knight of the... n.

slang the mauleys (v.)

1. to shake hands.

1789

G. Parker Life’s Painter 136: I say, how are you? slang us your mauly; what lock do you cut now?

2. to fight with one’s hands or fists.

1801		G. Hangar Life, Adventures and Opinions II 60: Those necessary professional accomplishments, such as [...] how to slang your mawley.
1822		D. Carey Life in Paris 72: A ‘first-rate slanger of the morleys’.

tip the mauleys (v.)

to shake hands.

1850

Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 6 Apr. n.p.: As for our friends from across the water, tip us your mawleys.