Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. the mouth; thus mawed adj., having a mouth of a specified kind.

c.1367–86		Langland Piers Ploughman (1550) V Fii line 124: May no sugar nor swete thig aswage my swelling [...] Nether shrift nether shame, but shraping of mi maw.
1523		Skelton Colyn Cloute (1550) Biiii: To chewe and to gnawe To fyll ther with your mawe.
c.1538		Thersytes (1550) D ii: The mawe of the moorecocke that made mawd to mowe.
1540		D. Lyndsay Satyre of Thrie Estaits (1604) 15: Ane kis of your sweit mow.
1556		J. Withals Dictionarie in Eng. and Latine ‘Parts of the bodie’ Tiiii: The maw, ventriculus.
1568		Hist. of Jacob and Esau II iv: If I had bidden from meate any longer, I thinke my very mawe would haue frette asonder.
1589		Lyly Pappe with an Hatchet B: Bastard Iunior dinde vpon them, and cramde his maw as full of malice, as his heart was of malapertness.
1591		Most Horrible Murder of Lord Bourgh in Collier (1863) I 9: That wicked and bloodye Cosby, coulde not be content with one mortall wound [...] to gorge [...] his greedie mawe.
1603		Shakespeare Measure for Measure III ii: Do thou but think What ’tis to cram a maw, or clothe a back.
1611		L. Barry Ram-Alley IV i: As is a knife vnsheath’d with th’ hungry maw, Threatning the ruine of a chine of Beefe.
1620		Dekker Dekker His Dreame 25: Ragg’d Soldiers [...] with chill blasts quaking / And shrunke-vp mawes, did to their Worships come.
1629		R. Brome Northern Lasse I iv: What a mischeievous Maw has this she Canibal that gapes for me!
1636		W. Cartwright Royal Slave III i: You Grecians I think have sponges in your mawes.
1638		Ford Fancies Act IV: Rotten in thy maw, thy guts and garbage.
1640		H. Mill Nights Search I 56: The Canibal when he saw a stranger saw, He strangely entertain’d him in his maw.
1657		Marlowe Lascivious Queen V vi: There must Hortenzo hang, Like Tantalus in a maw-eating pang.
1680		M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 86: Full dear I long’d to be a Bitching — / Of some young Rump I wish thy Maw full / That thou mayst pray on food that’s lawfull.
1693		Congreve Old Bachelor V ii: This letter, that so sticks in thy maw, is counterfeit.
1707		N. Ward Wooden World 99: If he sprinkle a Grace over the Platter, it’s a plain Symptom, that his Maw’s out of Order.
1713		W. King York Spy 19: Observe yonder two Gaudy Thump-Cushions, that are cram’d up to their very Throats, whilst others have not a Morsel in their Maw.
1725		‘Canter’s Serenade’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 43: Rise, shake off your straw, / And prepare you each maw / To kiss, eat, and drink till you are bouzy.
1739		R. Bull Grobianus 34: With present Carnage fills his empty Maw, And grinds all Remnants with a greedy Jaw.
1744		J. Broadbottom Bog-House Poem 30: Indian Leaf suffus’d with Fragrants bland, / Comforts the Maw.
1750		Hist. of Jack Horner 22: He cram’d all these into his maw.
1765		H. Howard Choice Spirits Museum 41: They on Pollard and Oatmeal, Replenish’d their Maws.
1779		F. Moore Songs and Ballads of the Amer. Revolution (1855) 263: With their maws stuff’d with frogs, soups and jellies.
1788		Morris et al. ‘Prophets’ Festival of Anacreon (1810) 48: All my hope was nearly gone, Sir, / When I left the monster’s maw.
1794		‘Peter Pindar’ ‘A Rowland for an Oliver’ Works (1794) II 433: Alas! that maw profound of thine.
c.1805		‘Mounseer Nong Tong Paw’ Jovial Songster 62: This fellow is some mighty don! / No doubt has plenty for the maw, / I’ll breakfast with this Nong tong paw.
1812		W. Combe Doctor Syntax, Picturesque (1868) 69/2: Whose hungry maws are daily bent / On the fine feast of cent per cent.
1820		‘L.A.W — LAW!’ London Songster 14: The judge [...] advises you not to make breaches / In L.A.W — Law. / Nor play the game of see-saw / With meat for another man’s maw.
1830		T. Hood ‘Gog and Magog’ Works (1862) II 334: So hungry is my maw, / Give me an Alderman in chains, / And I will eat him raw!
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 51: Fuzzy, you want a gut-scraping, you dunnakin mawed son of a bi-ch.
1850		‘Ned Buntline’ G’hals of N.Y. 62: For the success of the g’hals was certain to turn the contents of the sailor’s pockets into his own greedy maw.
1858		‘A. Pendragon’ Queen of the South 83: Eating and guzzling, cramming your maw, while a poor devil’s in agony; just like doctors.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 57/2: [He] rose to make a speech, first emptying a half-quartern glass of the ‘raw’ into his maw.
1873		Sl. Dict. 224: Maw the mouth; ‘hold your maw,’ cease talking.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Mar. 7/3: Without the wherewithal to buy / Protection from the law, / What can he do when once he gets / In its rapacious maw?
1892		A. Bierce ‘Slickens’ Black Beetles in Amber 239: It feeds my jaw, It crams my maw.
1929		J. Sale Tree Named John 41: Hyere, nigger, shevel dis in yo’ maw en git out!
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 90: She doesn’t want to rob anybody of their land, because her maw is full of her undigested spoils from centuries of warfare.
1961		G.L. Coon Meanwhile, Back at the Front (1962) 210: He yanked the bottle from Moon’s table and upended it over his maw.
1970		A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 15: After that, other good books were chewed into my maw.
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].
1998		B. Robinson Peculiar Memories of Thomas Penman 88: Got no class, that dog [...] He’s all arsehole and maw.
2008		(ref. to 1971) F. Dennis ‘Homo sapiens sapiens’ Homeless in my Heart 100: Today, in a picture book I saw / A frog with a bat gripped in its maw.
2011		J.J. DeCeglie Drawing Dead [ebook] A drop-dead gorgeous smile on her maw.

2. (US black) the vagina.

1946		in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 181: She learned it in Stone County, Missouri, in the 1890s [...] ‘I got a widder in Carico, / Sent for me ’cause her Maw couldn’t go, / Meat in the smokehouse, fodder in the barn, / A little bit of friggin’ wouldn’ do her any harm.’.
1983		R. Klein Jailhouse Jargon and Street Sl. [unpub. ms.].
1995		Francis-Jackson Official Dancehall Dict. 33: Maw the oral or vaginal cavity: u. to look in someone’s maw.