Green’s Dictionary of Slang

marry come up! excl.

also marry avaunt! marry come out! marry troop up!
[synon. with hoity-toity! excl.]

an excl. used to express indignant or amused surprise or contempt; ext. as marry come up, my dirty cousin!, used to tease one who is putting on airs.

[UK]New Custom I ii: Marie auvaunt, Jackesauce, and pratling knaue.
[UK]Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet II v: Are you so hot? Marry, come up, I trow; Is this the poultice for my aching bones?
[UK]Dekker Honest Whore Pt 1 III ii: Mary come vp with a pox, haue you no body to raile against, but your Bawd now?
[UK]Dekker Honest Whore Pt 2 (1630) V ii: Mary come out, y’are so busie about my Petticoate, you’ll creepe vp to my placket.
[UK]J. Tatham The Rump II i: Marry come up Mrs. Minks.
[UK]M. Stevenson Wits Paraphras’d 82: Do ye think I’m meat for such a whorson? / Marry come up my Dirty Cousin.
[UK]Dryden Don Sebastian 16: Marry come up Sir! Virtues quoth ah!
[Ire]‘Teague’ Teagueland Jests I 70: Out, you Lousie Bogg-trotting Skip [...] marry troop up, Bonny-clapper.
[UK]‘Nickydemus Ninnyhammer’ Homer in a nut-shell 31: Pretend to Rule? Marry come up.
[UK]Swift Polite Conversation 14: Marry come up: What, plain Neverout, methinks you might have an M under your Girdle.
[UK]Fielding Joseph Andrews (1954) I 51: ‘Marry-come-up’ cries Slipslop.
[UK]Foote Author in Works (1799) I 132: Marry, come up, I keep as good company as your worship.
[Ire]K. O’Hara Midas act II: Marry come up a gain. / Indeed! my dirty cousin!
[UK]‘Geoffrey Wildgoose’ Spiritual Quixote I Bk iv 232: You pot-gutted rascal! no more than yourself! marry come up!
[UK]G. Colman Yngr John Bull III ii: Marry come up! And what should you be then?
[UK]C. Lamb Pawnbrokers’s Daughter II ii: Marry come up! Drabs and servant wenches!
[Aus]Northern Star 17 Oct. 4/5: Marry, come up, indeed!
[UK]C. Kingsley Westward Ho II 296: Marry come up, what says Scripture?
[UK]‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) III 282: If she had lived in the Elizabethan era she could have adjured him with a ‘Marry, come up!’ which would have brought him to the point without any further trouble.
[Scot]Fife Herald 5 Apr. 4/5: Who will readily forget the strange scorn [...] scattered through that letter where he speaks of the prince with a ‘Marry come up, my dirty cousin’?
[UK]Reading Mercury 31 July 8/5: Agreed, have they? Ods boddikins! gads my life, and marry come up, sweetheart!
[UK]Worcs. Chron. 7 Sept. 3/1: Marry Come Up —It is asserted that, in consequence of his marriage, Lord Carrington is about to resign.
[UK]Northampton Mercury 24 Dec. 2/7: An’ it’s marry come up! at the Castle.
[UK]Grantham Jrnl 11 Sept. 7/1: ‘Marry Come Up!’ By the Verdict recently given [...] it is legal for a clergyman to ‘marry himself’.
[Aus]Sun. Times (Perth) 28 July 4/7: Green made a few staccato steps towards the bar [...] ‘Bit wobbly, sir’ ‘Marry come up,’ quoth Green, ‘an’ what would you? Isn’t she supposed to be a “tight” ship?’.
[US] ‘Miscellaneous Notes’ in AS III:3 259: Such terms as [...] ‘marry come up,’ and ‘Odd’s bodikins,’ were slang.
[Aus]E. Curry Hysterical Hist. of Aus. 42: But alas and marry-come-up, it was soon discovered.