mickey n.1
1. ext. or fig. uses of mick n.1 , pertaining to Irishness and its stereotypes.
2. (Aus.) an unbranded animal, a wild bullock; cite 1865 refers to a horse [? the stereotyped ‘wild Irishman’].
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Sydney Morn. Herald 26 Oct. 2/4: [I]t was ascertained that a ‘mickey’ signified an unbranded animal, and ‘duffing’ was the slang title for cattle stealing [...] ‘[H]e said he had run in a fine filly, a mickey, I understood by that it was an unbranded filly. | |
| Bush-Life in Queensland I 227: There are three or four Mickies and wild heifers. | |
| [ | ![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Regiment 11 Apr. 31/1: A recruit is usually referred to as ‘Cruity,’ ‘Mickey,’ ‘Rooster,’ or ‘Johnny’]. |
| Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant. | |
| Dinkinbar 49: I hankered after the station any way, and the – and your infernal bullocks topped the market; and there’s not a mickey or a broken fence or gate on the run. | |
| In Bad Company 171: Anything of the nature of post and rails is very terrifying to the uneducated ‘Mickies’ and ‘clear-skins’. | |
| Hibiscus Heart 124: The mob of ‘mickies’ [...] somewhere in the fastnesses of the range. | |
| Sheepmates 244: Nothing pleased them more than for one of their number to be caught by a charging ‘Mickey’ [...] No one ever got hurt beyond a bruise or two from stumpy horns. | |
| in Territory. | |
| Content to Lie in the Sun 75: We stockmen were after the wanted heifers and ‘mickies’ (young bulls) fleeing for safety. | |
| Behind Banana Curtain 86: Pat managed to round up several ‘Mickey’ bulls (uncastrated wild cattle). |
(a) (US, also mikey) an Irish person.
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 11 Oct. n.p.: What makes that big Mickey, McR—y [...] put on so many airs? | |
| ‘The Divil’s own Boy’ in Fred Shaw’s Champion Comic Melodist 16: One Mickey Free, from Dublin town. | |
| ‘Hail Columbia, Right Side Up’ in Orig. Pontoon Songster 37: Yankee Doodle and Mickey Free / Will soon shake their hands in union. | |
| Vagabond Papers (4th Ser.) 71: Nearly every ‘Mickey’ and ‘Biddy’ throughout the States gave out of their hard earnings to help ‘Ould Ireland’. | |
| Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant. | |
| Sun. Times (Perth) 13 Nov. 4/7: "Oh, d— it, Oi’m good for 45 anny way,’ responded the gallant Mickey. | |
| Harbor (1919) 17: I caught glimpses of strange, ragged boys. ‘Micks,’ Belle sometimes called them, and sometimes, ‘Finian Mickies’. | |
| Criminal Sl. (rev. edn). |
(b) (Aus./US) a Roman Catholic.
| Bulletin (Sydney) 14 May. 4/1: The ‘vision of Knock,’ as seen by various pious persons, still affords matter for the credulous conductors of the Weekly Mickey. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | No Surrender n.p.: The mountain was inaccessible because to reach it we had to cross territory held by the Mickeys [BS]. |
(c) (US) a potato, esp. a roasted sweet potato.
| Dead End Act III: Hey guys, duh mickeys ah awmost done! | |
| McSorley’s Wonderful Saloon (2001) 22: Sometimes they roast mickies in the gutter fires. | |
| Manchild in the Promised Land (1969) 322: We stole our first mickies together from Gordon’s fruit stand. |
3. (Irish, also mick) the penis; also attrib.
| letter 8 Dec. to Nora Barnacle in Ellman Sel. Letters (1975) 185: Gently take out your lover’s fat mickey, lap it up in your moist mouth and suck away at it till it gets fatter and stiffer and comes off in your mouth. | |
| Ulysses 729: Ill put on my best shift and drawers let him have a good eyeful out of that to make his micky stand for him. | |
| in Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) I 369: Got to get a little shaggin’ every day; / I leave my mark wherever I go, / With my long old horny mickabri-ne-o! | |
| Hero of Too 315: ‘You made him his little mickey shield.’ [...] ‘the thing batsmen wear at cricket matches’. | |
| 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases. | |
| Queens’ Vernacular. | |
| Gigli Concert in Plays 3 (1994) Scene v: Trying to get my – my micky into her. | |
| (con. 1930s) Emerald Square 109: The boys [...] spotted my unusual [i.e. circumcised] penis and started calling me ‘Mushroom Mickey’. | |
| Vinnie Got Blown Away 130: Then he was still rolling about pulled his strides down poured some stuff over his hairy mick. | |
| Bend for Home 264: He was old enough not to know a mickey from a pussy, shrieks Nancy. | |
| PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 235: Trevor’s as excited as a Frenchman with ten mickeys. | |
| Braywatch 35: ‘The geerdle said Rosser theer has a m … m … m … m … mickey on him like wooden of them spring r … r … r … r … rowults’. |
4. (mainly Can./US black) a small bottle of wine or spirits [michael n. (1)].
| Vocab. Criminal Sl. 58: micky [...] A corruption of Michael [...] a flask of liquor. | |
| You Can’t Win (2000) 63: If we was in the city I’d take fifty cents of it purty pronto and get myself a four-bit micky [...] a fifty-cent bottle of alcohol. | |
| Und. and Prison Sl. 53: micky, n. I. A drink of hard liquor. 2. A bottle of booze. | |
| Und. Speaks n.p.: Mickey, half pint of bootleg whiskey. | |
| Runnin’ Down Some Lines 187: Many wines could be had in pint bottles, they too had their special names — short dog, puppy, mickey (little mouse). | |
![[Can]](/static/img/flags/can.png "Canada") | (con. 1920s) Legs 76: All they came up with was forty cents and a half mickey of moonshine. | |
| Night Dogs 241: The cops were their friends down there [i.e. skid row], protecting them [...] when they got knifed in some stumbling argument over a mickey of wine. | |
 | ‘Minyan’ in Natasha 134: The Russian man [...] contributed a mickey of cheap vodka. |
5. (Irish/Aus./N.Z.) the vagina.
| (con. 1930s) Teems of Times and Happy Returns 143: ‘There was an old lady, God bless her, / Who threw her leg over a dresser, / The dresser was sticky an’ stuck to her mickey ...’ That’s what big people called dirty songs. | |
| Smokey Hollow 21: [as cit. 1961]. | |
![[NZ]](/static/img/flags/nz.png "New Zealand") | Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 134: michael/mickey/mickeydidi The vagina, from obsolete English word mick, female genitals. |
6. (US, also mickey’s) a knockout drug, usu. administered via an alcoholic drink [abbr. mickey finn n.].
| (ref. to late 19C) Amer. Madam (1981) 231: Some men were given mickeys, rolled, sandbagged, and even killed and dropped in the river. | |
| On Broadway 30 June [synd. col.] Now look, lady, please be quiet – we’re short of Mickeys! | |
| Little Men, Big World 171: He left a prescription. You just drop the stuff in his milk, like a mickey. | |
| Big Gold Dream 140: So when she was getting herself baptized, I dropped a little mickey into her bottle of drinking water. | |
| Mt Vernon Register-News (IL) 1 May 5/5: His captor had to slip him a mickey to do it. | |
| Erections, Ejaculations etc. 240: 2 or 3 guys were just laying around [...] it smelled like Mickey’s, well, a gringo’s got it coming. [...] I drink the Mickey, but I fool them. I walk right out. | |
| ‘Razorback Sl.’ in AS L:1/2 62: mickey n Tranquilizer. | |
| Gone Girl 338: She could have slipped me a mickey for all I knew. | |
| Joey Piss Pot 114: Galante had already slipped Doris a mickey, a grounded-up Roofie he’d dropped into her highball. |
7. attrib. use of sense 6.
| Of Minnie the Moocher and Me 103: Sailors off the Bremen Heil-Hitler’d at the bar and got the mickey treatment. |
8. (US prison) a fellow inmate.
| et al. DAUL 138/2: Mick or micky. (P) An inmate of a penal institution. 2. A person. | |
| Down These Mean Streets (1970) 264: I watched him huddle in a corner of the yard with all the green mickies. |
9. (US) a fellow, a person.
| et al. DAUL 138/2: Mick or micky. (P) [...] A person. | |
| Down These Mean Streets (1970) 181: You must be new mickies ’cause you don’t call a ship a boat. Le’s see your papers. Messmen. Go on back aft and see the steward. |
10. (US) aggressiveness, macho.
| Ringolevio 461: One of the round steel toes rammed clean into his balls, taking all the mickey out of him. |
11. (N.Z. prison) a sleeping pill; thus v. mickey (finn), to spike a victim’s drink with drugs or alcohol.
| ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 33: mickey n. A sleeping pill - ‘slip them the Mickey’ [...] To spike one’s drink with drugs or alcohol. | |
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 116/1: Mickey (also Mickey Finn or Mickey Flynn) n. 1 a sleeping tablet. |
12. (N.Z. prison) a marijuana cigarette .
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 116/1: Mickey a cigarette containing marijuana . |
13. (N.Z. prison) constr. with the, the perfect example.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 116/2: mickey, the adj. good, excellent, the best (esp. applied to drugs). |
In compounds
(Aus.) a Roman Catholic.
| (ref. to 1950s) Aus. Word Map 🌐 Catholic (another rude shool child term of the 50s): All the mickey drips go to the convent school. |
14. (N.Z. prison) a lesbian.
| Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 116/2: mickey licker n. a lesbian. |
(Aus.) a man who performs cunnilingus; thus mickey-munching adj.
| Breaking Out 169: You are a bloody lop-eared, [...] muff-diving, mickey-munching [...] fart-faced flip of a fucking galah! | |
| ‘Jackie’s Family Lessons’ 🌐 He was a fine mickey muncher. The fact that I was climaxing didn’t stop him for a second. He ate, licked, sucked, and loved every part of my cunt over and over, and he soon began to include my asshole in his rounds. |
In phrases
(Irish) to play the fool.
| Dublin Mag. 9 27: That’s no call for acting the mickey in a public place. Damn bloody students. | |
| Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 39: Acting the mickey in school, that’s about the worst of it. |
(Aus.) to lose one’s temper, to have a tantrum.
| Ridge and River (1966) 84: She’d chuck a micky if you touched her where it wouldn’t show. | |
| (con. 1940s) Sowers of the Wind 12: He’s chucking a mickey! | |
| Unlucky Dip 90: Not that it was such a terrible thing really – but the Boss threw a mickey [AND]. | |
| Aus. Family Plays 118: Don’t throw a micky, Bert, it only cost fourpence [AND]. | |
| Hunting the Wild Pineapple 139: You're like all southerners [...] They throw a mickey the first time they cop it. | |
| http://arstechnica.com 26 June 🌐 I bypassed Vista via linux till my wife chucked a mickey about it being so different to XP. |
(US) to render a victim unconscious through adding a sedative, esp. chloral hydrate, to their drink.
| Cop Remembers 44: Whenever a troublesome character hung around the bars too long the bartenders slipped him a Mickey Finn, a violent purgative which was put into his drinks. | |
| Collier’s 98 37/3: You might remember the time he even slipped him a Mickey one night. | |
| ‘Daughter of Murder’ Dan Turner – Hollywood Detective Dec. 🌐 Are you saying your mother’s business agent slipped you a mickey. | |
| Harder They Fall (1971) 217: Maybe you could slip the guy a mickey. | |
| I, Mobster 68: If it’s some bitch from Park Avenue, slip her a micky. | |
| Garden of Sand (1981) 151: The man you slipped the Mickey to before stealing his purse tells us you are not to be trusted. | |
| Much Obliged, Jeeves 109: You mean you slipped him a Mickey Finn? | |
| Too Many Crooks Spoil the Caper 88: The crafty bitch had slipped me a Mickey! | |
| Drop Dead, My Lovely (2005) 155: Wendy Litman had managed to slip me a Mickey. | |
| ‘Outrageous’ 🎵 Slip a little mickey to them iced-out Cristal sippers. | |
| Thrill City [ebook] Izzy was going to play the femme fatale [...] and slip the guy a Mickey. |
see separate entry.