muzzle n.1
1. the face, the nose or the mouth; thus -muzzled adj., have a face, nose or mouth as specified [orig. SE].
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | (trans.) Guillaume de Guileville’s Pilgrimage 22753: Hyt semyth [...] By lyfftynge vp off thy mosel, That thow pleyest the ape wel [OED]. | |
| Arcadia I (1912) 164: But ever and anon turning her muzzell toward me, she threwe such a prospect upon me, as might well have given a surfet to any weake lovers stomacke. | |
| Life’s Painter 135: Rugged-muzzle tink’ring Tom / For me left maw-mouth’d Nan. | |
| Fortune’s Fool III ii: We’ll fight across it, muzzle to muzzle. | |
| ‘The Margate Hoy’ Jovial Songster 8: And you Miss Dolly Drylips, take a reef in your perriwig, and clap a stopper on your muzzle, clue up the plaits in your jaw bags. | |
| Sequel to The Military Adventures of Johnny Newcome II 126: When all was silent, every muzzle mum — He could not make a speech — who made a plum. | |
| Man o’ War’s Man (1843) 39: Did you not expect to get a few of these same spoonfuls [...] into your own muzzle. | |
 | Citizen 1 July 379: Round 1st. Blue opened the hall by napping his antagonist on his scent box, which brought the claret quickly. Red-rag in return his his man on the muzzle. | |
| Cruise of the Midge I 157: The old fellow, who had just finished his pea soup [...] wiped his muzzle. | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | ‘The Cook Shop’ Dublin Comic Songster 160: By the side of your dustman whose black muzzle dips / In the gush of the gravy. | |
| Sixteen-String Jack 190: If he shewed his muzzle in London, he would be carried to Newgate as sure as his name is Jack. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Bell’s Life in Sydney 20 Apr. 1/5: Con had received prominent marks of hard hitting on his muzzle, mouth, eye, and jaw. | |
| Discourse on the Nigger Question 5: We have a few black persons rendered extremely ‘free’ indeed. Sitting yonder with their beautiful muzzles up to the ears in pumpkins. | |
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 178: MUZZLE, the mouth. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Night Side of N.Y. 35: Your black-muzzled fellow with his felt hat slouched over his brow. | |
| Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 110: Being a Jew he wore a very long and jet black beard [...] and in joke would often call out to a person, ‘Silence black muzzle!’. | |
| Tag, Rag & Co. 82: I drop’t on about ten or a dozen haymaking chaps [...] all of them with muzzles that a razor hadn’t touched for a week. | |
| Bulletin (Sydney) 14 Feb. 7/3: We know this is going to be a trenchant article, because we are primed to the muzzle with inspiration. | |
| Aus. Sl. Dict. 51: Muzzle, the mouth. | |
| Arizona Nights 190: Why, an hour after filling myself up to the muzzle I’d be hungry again. | |
| Ulysses 100: Father Coffey. I knew his name was like a coffin. Domineamine. Bully about the muzzle he looks. Bosses the show. | |
| ‘The Devil Must Pay’ in Goodstone Pulps (1970) 18/2: The beer came; he buried his muzzle in it. | |
| Mistral Hotel (1951) 64: We soon had our muzzles deeply into goblets of dry champagne laced with brandy. | |
| At Night All Cats Are Grey 61: Scroggy lifts his muzzle out of the pint. | |
| After Hours 187: Kleinfeld’s eyes were half lidded, with his muzzle all puffed up. | |
| Indep. on Sun. Rev. 12 Dec. 49: They push a forkful of eggs and bacon into the old muzzle. | |
| Indep. Rev. 7 June 7: ‘Have you seen him?’ Hansen will ask, poking his foxy muzzle around the door of my secretary’s cubbyhole. |
2. a beard, ‘(usually) long and nasty’ (B.E.).
| Spanish Gypsy II i: alv.: The Lacedemonians threw their beards over their shoulders, to observe what men did behind them as well as before; you must do it. car.: We shall never do it. ant.: Our muzzles are too short. | |
| Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Muzzle, a Beard (usually) long and nasty. | |
| New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. | |
| , , , | | Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698]. |
| , , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. |
In compounds
a nickname for a man with a prominent nose and mouth.
| Roaring Girle III iii: This old muzzle-chops should be he by the fellows description. |
(UK Und.) toothache.
| New and Improved Flash Dict. |
In phrases
1. (US) to silence, e.g. an informer.
| Sporting Times 23 May 2/4: They’d better put the muzzle on their line of chesty chat, / An’ pad their solar plexuses when I go on the mat. | |
| On the Waterfront (1964) 208: We got to find a way to put the muzzle on him. | |
| Constant Gardener 500: They put the muzzle on that brother of hers all right. |
2. (also keep one’s muzzle on) to stop talking; also as an excl.
| Boss 292: You’d better keep your muzzle on [...] Your mouth will get you into trouble yet. | |
| Digger Dialects 40: put the muzzle on! — Stop talking! | |
| (con. WWI) Gloss. Sl. [...] in the A.I.F. 1921–1924 (rev. t/s) n.p.: put the muzzle on. Stop talking. |