Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. food, drink.

1847		J. Palmer Journal of Travels over the Rocky Mountains 150: Muck-a-muck Provisions, eat.
1852		Oregonian 25 Dec. 2/3: The aborigine [...] ‘put’ for the settlement with a sort of legs-do-your-duty-for-the-body-is-in-danger resolution for his muckamuck [DA].
1869		J.R. Browne Adventures in Apache Country 454: They were Pi-Ute squaws, on a ‘hogadie expedition’ — ‘hogadie’ signifying muck-a-muck, or food.
1880		Forest and Stream 11 Nov. 285/2: We should have to come ashore and have some ‘muck-a-muck’ [DA].
1901		Dly Jrnl (Salem, OR) 13 Aug. 2/2: He said of these junk eaters [...] that the booze and muck-a-muck faded before them like dog-biscuit in a band of starving malamuts.
1922		P.A. Rollins Cowboy 78: A few words were borrowed from the Chinook jargon of the coastal trappers and traders [...] ‘muckamuck’ (food, or to eat or to drink).
1939		M. Colby A Guide to Alaska xl: Some of the Chinook expressions still used in everyday speech [...] muckamuck n. (C.) food.

2. (also muckademuck, muck-de-muck, muckety-muck, muckie-muck, muck-i-muck, muckti-muck, muckty-muck, mucky-muck) an important or self-important person; esp. as big muck-a-muck and high muck-a-muck n.

1877		Dodge City Times 11 Aug. in Miller & Snell Why the West was Wild (1963) 293: ‘Again,’ said the Judge [...] ‘do you appear within this sacred realm, of which I, and only I, am high muck-i-muck.’.
1878		F.H. Hart Sazerac Lying Club 94: The wind knocked one of them ‘high-you’ muckamuck English lords clear out of his saddle.
1913		Lumberjack (Alexandria, LA) 10 Apr. 1/2: All the Santa fe muckamucks have been here .
1914		H. Hershfield Abie the Agent 16 Nov. [synd. cartoon strip] I got to [...] show up to them that I’m some big ‘muckeh muck’ in this town.
1928		M. Bodenheim Georgie May 36: He’s jake with some mighty high mucky-mucks.
1928		C. McKay Home to Harlem 67: You really spec’s me to believe youse been associating with the mucty-mucks of the race? Gwan with you.
1929		D. Hammett Red Harvest (1965) 6: As chief muckademuck of the I.W.W. in Personville he considered it his duty to get the low-down on me.
1934		H. Miller Tropic of Cancer (1963) 186: One of the big muck-a-mucks from the other side of the water had decided to make economies.
1940		S. Longstreet Decade 311: Knew all the big muckamucks. Screwed his way into Wall Street power.
1946		Drake & Cayton Black Metropolis 521: People with slight education, small incomes, and few social graces are always referring to the more affluent and successful as ‘dicties,’ ‘stuck-ups,’ muckti-mucks,’ ‘high-toned folks, ‘tony people.’.
1947		Chicago Herald-American 15 Jan. 13/7: Right now, the supreme muckety-muck of the English army [...] is in Russia, getting 21-gun salutes.
1948		Z.N. Hurston Seraph on the Suwanee (1995) 713: You come from some big high muck-de-mucks, and we ain’t nothing but piney-woods Crackers and poor white trash.
1950		J.T. Farrell ‘Willie Collins’ in Amer. Dream Girl (1950) 214: He might even give an instructive talk [...] that would make an impression on the bigwigs and the high muckety-mucks of the Company.
1951		(con. 1880s) S. Longstreet Pedlocks (1971) 91: Condon waved to them. ‘Big Copper Combine muck-a-mucks,’ he told Louis.
1952		Lait & Mortimer USA Confidential 70: Small manufacturers are forced to operate under strict union conditions, carrying heavy handicaps as against the big mucky-mucks who made deals.
1957		(con. 1943) A. Myrer Big War 149: You’re one of the high muckie-mucks.
1960		(con. 1940s) G. Morrill Dark Sea Running 213: He was a travelling secretary to a big mucky-muck in the Episcopal Church!
1962		P. Mandel Mainside 25: Local boy. Father was a Congressman or a Senator. Some muck-de-muck.
1970		A. Young Snakes (1971) 107: Let’s get out heads bad and get down with these mucky-mucks.
1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 71: Mama started social climbing, tearing her asshole out [...] to compete with the status shit muckety-mucks of so-called Nigger Society.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 28: We don’t want to have anything to do with their big muckdemucks.
1988		D. Woodrell Muscle for the Wing 88: Mixing up a batch of gimlets [...] the way muckety-mucks mix it in Clearwater, Florida.
2000		Indep. Rev. 28 Jan. 12: The movie muckety-mucks [...] latched on to films such as the time-travel movie, Happy Accidents.
2004		T. Dorsey Cadillac Beach 171: You should see all the outgoing personal correspondence to muckety-mucks I have to deal with.