mag n.3
1. a halfpenny.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Life and Character of Moll King 11: Let me see, [...] a Double Gage of Rum Slobber, is Thrums; and a Quartern of Max, is three Megs. | |
| Discoveries (1774) 43: A Meag and Jack; a Halfpenny and Farthing. | |
| ‘The Potato Man’ in Musa Pedestris (1896) 55: Here’s light your honor for a mag. | |
| Life’s Painter 132: Bless your eyes and limbs, lay out a mag with poor chirruping Joe. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | ‘Flash Lang.’ in Confessions of Thomas Mount 18: Coppers, maggs. | |
| Dict. Sl. and Cant. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Vocab. of the Flash Lang. | |
| Key to the Picture of the Fancy going to a Fight 17: [H]e has [...] blowed out his buffer well with the last mag left in his clie. | |
| Life in London (1869) 185: These are the sort of flats that the cup and ball chaps like, who will play and stand the grin, till they are completely cleaned out, and have not a mag left to help themselves with. | |
| Cockney Adventures 6 Jan. 74: Bill Smith [...] would go and play at the thimble-rig, and he lost all his money, every farden; he hadn’t got a mag left. | |
| Flash Mirror 4: The Bug Walk [...] This house is a pannum supply; where can be had a good serve out of ‘ox wash’ for three maggs. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | ‘Jack Rag’ Dublin Comic Songster 4: If you see me on the crossing, and you can spare a mag, / I hope you won’t begrudge it me – poor Jack Rag. | |
| Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 25 Feb. 3/2: And every mag he had in his bag / Was ever poor Claud’s and mine. | |
| Bell’s Life in Sydney 28 Feb. 3/4: Perhaps the residents have been so thoroughly ‘fine-drawn’ they've not a ‘mag’ left for Maggotty. | |
| Kendal Mercury 17 Apr. 6/1: Ven a cove vould drop you a meg, he vould tell you to lay it out to the best advantage, like as if the blueing of it would take an halfternoon. | |
| , | | Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. |
| Rogue’s Progress (1966) 129: I emerge from Whitecross Street without a mag. | |
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 104/1: She repeatedly overhauled her breast and ‘kick’ without a sign of a ‘mag’ coming to light. | |
| Wilds of London (1881) 114: I shan’t have a mag left for a glass of gin in the morning. | |
| Morn. Bulletin (Rockhampton, Qld) 18 July 2/6: A half-penny [...] may find the following; ‘bawbees,’ ‘browns,’ ‘camden town,’ ‘coppers,’ ‘ flatch,’ ‘gray,’ ‘madge.’ ‘make,’ ‘mag or maga,’ ‘posh,’ and ‘rap’. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | Dundee Courier 13 June 7/5: You’re a brick, Fred [...] Taint every mate would have paid his last meg for a chap like me. | |
| Savage London 27: He put his hands into his pockets and turned them out. ‘Not a blessed mag!’. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 48: Mag, a half-penny. | |
| Warwickshire Word-Book 139: Mag, Meg. A half-penny. | |
| Sporting Times 24 Feb. 1/3: ‘They got nothing,’ he chuckled, ‘not a solitary rap, for fortunately—I repeat, fortunately—I had lost every mag I had on the last race.’. | |
| Dundee Eve. Teleg. 19 July 2/4: [A] halfpenny is a ‘brown’ or a ‘madzer (pronounced ‘medzer’), ‘saltee’ [...] ‘mag,’ ‘posh,’ ‘bawbee,’ or ‘rap’. | |
| Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 175: A halfpenny is a ‘meg’ or ‘rusty meg’. |
2. a penny, a cent.
| ‘Sonnets for the Fancy’ Boxiana III 621: In Leicester Fields, as most the story know, / ‘Come black your worship for a single mag.’. | |
| ‘Knowing Bill’ in Rake’s Budget in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 86: Salt cod I sell a vind a pound, / Red herrings twelve a flag / I sometimes hinguns cries around, / A quart, sir, for a mag. | |
| London Mag. Feb. 2/1: Timon — (sotto voce) Haven’t seen the colour of a ‘mag’ yet. | |
| Kendal Mercury 3 Apr. 6/2: A thrum of wins (threepence), and a meg for some sulphur and a flash of lightning (glass of gin). | |
| ‘Slang’ in Household Words 24 Sept. 75/2: Pence [are] browns, or coppers and mags. | |
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 7/2: I have been ‘barbered’ by some one while I was asleep, and every bloody ‘mag’ in my ‘kick’ is ‘namassed’. | |
| Sporting Times 10 Apr. 1/2: ‘I have asked fifteen of those women [...] for a bit, and not a mag did I get’. | |
| A Pink ’Un and a Pelican 278: Fleet Street can possibly ‘give a bit of weight’ to most places as a ‘run for the utterly magless, rapless and pebble-beached’. | |
| In Bad Company 214: There’s no fun in watchn’ of bloomin’ shearers makin’ their pound and thirty bob a day while we can’t raise a mag over three-and-six. | |
| How I Became a Detective 89: A ‘meg’ is a penny and ‘20 megs’ is 10 cents. | |
| Wash. Post 28 Mar. n.p.: The word comes from the slang of the street arab, who has a name for every coin. A ‘meg’ is a cent, a ‘jit’ or ‘jitney’ is a nickel, a ‘dimmo’ is a dime, and a ‘cute’ is a quarter. | |
| ‘Sl. Terms for Money’ in AS IV:5 357: A cent, which is a red or a meg. | |
| Big Con 301: meg. A one-cent piece, used in the smack. | |
| et al. DAUL 138/1: Meg. (Sing, and pl.) A cent; a penny. |
In compounds
playing pitch and toss.
| Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 7/2: Mag-flying [...] consists in tossing or twinkling in the air two pence or half-pence. The two-pence or half-pence are placed upon a small flat piece of wood [...] tail uppermost, and thrown up in the air with a twinkling motion, caused by the twist given to the piece of wood, at the time of parting from it; if they fall head uppermost the tosser wins whatever bet there may be on it; if tail appears he loses, if one head and one tail, he tosses over again. | |
| Daily Tel. 26 Mar. 2 col. 8: Of the twenty-nine ‘night charges,’ by far the greater number were of... boys for mag flying, i.e. ‘pitch and toss’ [F&H]. | |
| Signs of Crime 192: Magflying Playing pitch and toss. |
In phrases
(orig. UK Und.) to gamble by tossing halfpence, to play pitch and toss.
| Vocab. of the Flash Lang. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| , | | Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. |
| Sl. Dict. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 30: Fly the Mags, tossing half-pence. |
(Aus.) to gamble by tossing halfpence, to play pitch and toss.
| Sydney Monitor 25 Feb. 4/4: Why, spinning the mags, your worship, is slang for toss-half penny. [...] Constable Sutland then entered into a detail of rise and fall, in a direct line of a string of halfpence, which were arranged on a flat piece of wood, to enable the twirler to give an equal gravitation to each ; of the cries uttered by the byestanders of ‘6d. on heads!’ ‘3d. on tails!"’of the picking up and putting down of money, &c. |