Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (orig. US) to leave, to wander off, to wander or hang around.

1829		Virginia Literary Museum 30 Dec. 459: Mosey. To move off.
1838		J.C. Neal Charcoal Sketches (1865) 13: If your tongue wasn’t so thick, I’d say you must mosey: but moseying is only to be done when a gemman’s half shot.
1846		G.W. Harris ‘A Sleep-Walking Incident’ Spirit of the Times (N.Y.) XVI Sept. in Inge (1967) 62: You jist git rite up an’ mosey, afore I calls the old feller!
1859		H.E. Taliaferro Fisher’s River 33: Our Stewart’s Creek hero ‘moseyed’ off, ‘three sheets in the breeze’.
1864		‘Edmund Kirke’ Down in Tennessee 114: The peddlar tuck the money and mosey’d off.
1870		‘Mark Twain’ Curious Republic of Gondour (1919) 57: I hain’t got time to be palavering along here — got to [...] mosey along.
1884		C.F. Lummis letter 25 Dec. in Byrkit Letters from the Southwest (1989) 189: I [...] moseyed along very slowly.
1885		Iola Register (KS) 25 Dec. 6/2: If she didn’t like it she could pack her duds an’ mosey out’n thar.
1899		Ade Fables in Sl. (1902) 80: You peel them Duds an’ git to Work or else mosey right off o’ this Farm.
1900		Sporting Times 9 June 3/2: For thee I sigh / As sights the plover, / Whose mate has moseyed / With a lover, / And winged across the jasper sea.
1903		A. Adams Log of a Cowboy 124: You fellows just mosey along up the trail.
1906		C. M’Govern Sarjint Larry an’ Frinds 66: I’ll mousey around fer a while soon as you turns in.
1906		O.W. Hanley ‘Dialect Words From Southern Indiana’ in DN III:ii 121: mozy, v. To loiter, loaf. ‘He’s been mozyin’ around fer a week.’.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 40: So off we goes, moseyin’ down into It’ly on a bum railroad.
c.1908		Murray & Miller Round-Up i: Now I can empty my canteen in the coffee-pot, sure of a fresh supply of water by the time I am ready to mosey along.
1911		S. Ford Torchy 110: I quit and moseyed along uptown, just killin’ time.
1914		S. Lewis Our Mr Wrenn (1936) 197: Well, sister I suppose you want to mousey round and dream by yourself.
1918		K.F. Purdon Dinny on the Doorstep 123: She thought some day she’d like to mosey back there.
1923		J.H. Cook Fifty Years on the Old Frontier 36: When that hyena comes to camp, you kind o’ mosey around till he puts his gun down.
1927		(con. 1917) J. Stevens Mattock 117: Well, we might as well mosey back to the billet, old kid.
1932		Z. Grey Robbers’ Roost 38: We’re mozyin’ along.
1934		G.T. Fleming-Roberts ‘Blue Heat’ Phantom Detective May 🌐 Two fellows faking as street cleaners mozzied up to the bank [and] pulled machineguns out of their dump-carts.
1935		J. Conroy World to Win 245: We’ll have to mosey back or Uncle Jinglebollicks will get suspicious.
1944		Botkin A Treasury of Amer. Folklore 585: I loadened up, and moseyed off.
1944		E. Pyle Brave Men 98: Italian men in old ragged uniforms moseyed through the arbors.
1947		W.D. Overholser Buckaroo’s Code (1948) 13: Let’s mosey over to Charlie’s.
1949		Chicago Trib. 11 Sept. VI Sec. 4 8/2: You can also mosey around thru the furniture departments of stores to get your ideas [DA].
1958		T. Capote Breakfast at Tiffanys 78: We walked all the way to Chinatown [...] then moseyed across the Brooklyn Bridge.
1961		(con. 1930s) D. Behan Teems of Times and Happy Returns 133: Da [...] told Mr Devoy that it was about time everybody was mozeying upstairs.
1968		G. Cuomo Among Thieves 423: He [...] sort of moseyed over to the window.
1972		(con. 1916) G. Swarthout Tin Lizzie Troop (1978) 30: He moseyed into the grove.
1981		M. Baker Nam (1982) 57: Well, what the fuck is he talking about? So I just mosey on down the line.
1990		S. Morgan Homeboy 235: Guess I’ll mosey along.
2004		J. Ellroy ‘Hot-Prowl Rape-O’ Destination: Morgue! (2004) 275: They mingled and moseyed by.
2010		L. Berney Gutshot Straight [ebook] ‘I’ll just grab these [i.e. stolen items] and mosey off’.

2. to go fast, to make haste.

1859		H.E. Taliaferro Fisher’s River 60: At last the spell were broke, and I moseyed home at an orful rate .
1871		J. Hay ‘Banty Tim’ in Pike County Ballads 21: The nigger has got to mosey From the limits o’ Spunky P’int!
1884		(con. c.1840) ‘Mark Twain’ Huckleberry Finn 308: So I’ll mosey along now, and smouch a couple of case-knives.
1896		W.C. Gore Student Sl. in Cohen (1997) 6: mosey […] 2. To move with alacrity.
1931		O. Strange Law O’ The Lariat 153: Yu fork a cayuse an’ mosey along.
1999		J. Ridley Love Is a Racket 172: A couple of minutes moseyed into half an hour.

3. to walk along; go to.

1836		Public Ledger (Phila.) 2 Dec. n.p.: You’r not going to smoke me. So mosey off [DA].
1876		St Louis Globe-Democrat 19 Jan. n.p.: The bar-keeper gets ‘riled’ [...] and then adds ‘take a walk,’ ‘skirmish,’ ‘mosey,’ ‘walk off on your eyebrow’.
1901		Marvel XV:373 Jan. 3: Hands up! Mosey another yard, and we’ll plug you so full of bullets ye’d do fer a cullender!
1907		‘Hugh McHugh’ Beat It 49: So every once in a while Elsie moseys over from Plainville, N.J.
1919		T.A. Dorgan in Zwilling TAD Lex. (1993) 44: (O[utdoor] S[ports]: Giving the up and down to the pres. of the local anti — saloon league as he moseys by with a suspicious looking bundle) Well — here’s to crime.
1925		D. Hammett ‘Corkscrew’ Story Omnibus (1966) 201: If you got nothing else to do, we’ll mosey out there right now.
1931		D. Runyon ‘The Bloodhounds of Broadway’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 94: They come moseying along past Mindy’s every morning.
1937		J. Curtis You’re in the Racket, Too 194: I take me change and mosey off.
1944		D. Runyon Runyon à la Carte 62: He is moseying through Fifty-third when he gets so weak he falls down on the sidewalk.
1954		Oh Boy! No. 17 8: Guess I’ll jest keep moseying around till something happens.
1955		‘Blackie’ Audett Rap Sheet 165: I thanked him and moseyed out the door.
1965		B. Behan Confessions 237: It was late afternoon before I had recovered sufficiently to mosey around to the Irish Times office.
1967		(con. 1920s) J. Thompson South of Heaven (1994) 81: That’s kind of my job [...] To sort of mosey around and keep an eye on things.
1979		E. Torres After Hours 38: I mosied over.
1989		Beano Comic Library No. 182 34: I think I’ll mosey around town.
1994		J. Wambaugh Finnegan’s Week 291: Then they moseyed around the corner and vanished.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 111: I knew this was a twenty-four-hour gaff so I just mosey’d down.
2004		P. Howard PS, I Scored the Bridesmaids 45: I mosey on over to her.
2013		T. Robinson Hard Bounce [ebook] I moseyed up to the bar right next to Barnes. I can mosey real well when I try.

4. in a non-ambulatory sense, to proceed through an action.

2017

T. Pluck Bad Boy Boogie [ebook] Jay waited for Tony to mosey through his opening-up routine.