mick, n.¹ — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

mick n.¹

1. with ref. to the given name, esp. as used in Ireland, and thus bearing the ‘Irish’ stereotypes of Catholicism, manual labouring and potato-eating; note milit. the Micks, the Irish Guards; any Irish unit.

(a) (orig. US, also mickey, mickie) an Irish person; usu. but not invariably derog.

1838		W.N. Glascock Land Sharks and Sea Gulls II 108: A hodman, known by the name of Irish Mick.
1856		‘Mark Twain’ in Butte Record (Oroville, CA) 20 Sept. 3: One of the ‘bucks’ jerked something from his belt, that glistened in the moonlight, and looked very much like an Arkansas toothpick, and made for a Mick.
c.1863		J.H. Browne Four Years in Secessia 288: ‘Running a Mick’ was to get an Irishman drunk; induce him to enlist for two or three hundred dollars; obtain five times that sum from a citizen desirous of procuring a substitute.
1873		J. O’Connor Wanderings of a Vagabond 313: When it came to combats on the brick-bat, slung-shot, ‘knock-down and dragout’ principle, her champions could ‘whale blazes’ out of the ‘Micks,’ but in a forty foot ring they found themselves nowhere.
1879		H. Hartigan Stray Leaves (2nd ser.) 246: [Y]e’re in comfortable quarters at the head of all the non-coms in your brigade, and sure you’re only a Mick.
1888		St Paul Globe (MN) 23 Dec. 10/2: Oh! jolly Joe Hoy is the broth of a b’hoy, / He’s the type of a good-natured Mick.
1889		Dead Bird (Sydney) 5 Nov. 6/4: A couple of Micks fell out over the pronunciation [...] of the racehorse La Prix [...] ‘Begorra, oi’ll tell oo phwat we’ll do [etc]’.
1893		S. Crane Maggie, a Girl of the Streets (2001) 3: ‘Naw,’ responded Jimmie with a valiant roar, ‘dese micks can’t make me run.’.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 2 Sept. 7/4: Harry Perry won from the clever mick McCarthy on points.
1898		Regiment 16 Apr. 37/1: Gunner Jones [...] gets his toes trod on by Driver Murphy, and’ says, ‘Now then, Micky, mind where you’re coming to, that’s my foot’ [...] Micky: ‘Serruv yer roight, Yez shouldn't stand in one place an’ putt yer feet in another’ .
1903		A.H. Lewis Boss 67: He’s one of thim patent-leather Micks an’ puts on airs.
1907		Sun. Times (Perth) 4 Aug. 4/8: The average Mick a martyr is, / And loves to show with voice and print / Each Sassenach a Tartar is.
1912		Van Loan ‘Sweeney to Sanguinetti’ in Ten-Thousand-Dollar Arm 44: The red-headed, fighting mick.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 21 June 9/2: They Say [...] That Nellie T., the wild-headed Irishman, says that if anyone puts his name in ‘The Sport,’ he will severely chastise them: How about it now, Mick?
1915		E. Poole Harbor (1919) 17: I caught glimpses of strange, ragged boys. ‘Micks,’ Belle sometimes called them, and sometimes, ‘Finian Mickies’.
1922		M.E. Smith Adventures of a Boomer Op. 54: That ‘Mick’ is some scrapper, I’ll say.
1932		(con. 1910s) J.T. Farrell Young Lonigan in Studs Lonigan (1936) 11: He had almost got into a mixup with some soused mick.
1948		(con. 1944) N. Mailer Naked and Dead 72: No matter how much they might hate kikes, niggers, Russians, limeys, micks, they loved one another.
1955		B. Schulberg On the Waterfront (1964) 119: The Irish and Italians — the Micks and the Guineas.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 15: You sloppy Irish mick.
1967		L. Bruce Essential Lenny Bruce 15: One mick, one spic, one hick.
1971		R.D. Pharr S.R.O. (1998) 25: ‘This part of Amsterdam Avenue was all Irish. Back then those micks would stone the hell outa niggers if they dared to walk through this neighborhood’.
1979		J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 89: ‘Oh you’re a rale smart Mick, you are,’ he sneered.
1986		R.G. Barrett Godson 23: ‘[S]ome Mick out here would be a moral to take a pot at him’.
1986		F. Taylor Auf Wiedersehen Pet Two 143: You can piss off out of here, then. We don’t serve Micks in this pub.
1999		N. Cohn Yes We Have No 82: I bet you’ve got Irish disease, you Micks are all the same.
2000		J.J. Connolly Layer Cake 99: The best days of his life, Paddy bashing, fuckin Fenians and cuntin Prods as well, cos they’re all just shit-shovelling Micks, ain’t they, all the same.
2006		J. Ridley What Fire Cannot Burn 156: It was the girliest drink Soledad’d ever seen. A queer alky mick going dry on St. Paddy’s Day wouldnt touch the stuff.
2010		(con. 1973) C. Stella Johnny Porno 28: Tommy, me boy [...] The mick that does the trick.
2017		D. Winslow The Force [ebook] ‘You dumb fucking mick’.
2020		(con. 1991-94) W. Boyle City of Margins 107: Duke O’Malley [...] This mick must be off his meds.
2020		D. Whish-Wilson Shore Leave 172: Gooch had told Cassidy to fuck off before calling him a Mick bastard, the kind of insult that reflected [...] the ancient division in the force between Mason and Catholic.

(b) (Aus./US, also mic) a Roman Catholic.

1924		Gippsland Times (Vic.) 15 Sept. 1/4: He isn’t bothered either by the ’Proddies’ or the ‘Mics’.
1934		‘L. Parker’ Trooper to Southern Cross 151: We used to have a song at school: Catholic dogs, Jump like frogs which we always yelled at the Micks [AND].
1948		P. White Aunt’s Story 258: He says that Mother is wrong to send a girl to a convent with a lot of micks. But I cannot see [...] that there is anything wrong with nuns.
1967		‘Whisper All Aussie Dict.’ in Kings Cross Whisper (Sydney) xxxvi 4/2: mick: Catholic.
1986		R. Fitzgerald Pushed from the Wings (1989) 89: He’s [...] a red-hot Mick [...] Sherline’s presented him with nine kiddies.
1993		B. Moore Lex. of Cadet Lang. 233: mick a Catholic.

1937		in Partridge DU (1949) 437/2: Mick a road mechanic.
1939		H. Miller Tropic of Capricorn (1964) 278: It was the face of a hod carrier, an ignorant mick.

(d) (US) a potato.

1896		Salt Lake Herald (Salt Lake City) 13 Jan. 8/3: A hungry man asked for a plate of corned beef hash, a baked potato and a cup of coffee plain. ‘Gimme a cup o’ coffee on crutches, an insult to a square meal and a paralyzed Mick’ was the order to the cook.
1931		Chronicle-Telegram (Elyria, OH) 22 June 19/1: ‘Two Micks in kimonas’ – Irish potatoes with the skins on.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 210: For reasons that should not seem terribly obscure, the Irish potato also have been known as a bog orange, Donovan, Mick, or murphy.

(e) (US) as a generic, an Englishman.

1941

J. Smiley Hash House Lingo 37: Mick, Englishman.

2. (Aus.) in female senses [abbr. michael n.].

(a) the female genital area.

1941		Baker Aus. Vulgarisms 5: mick: The female pudend .
1988		L. Johansen Dinkum Dict.

(b) the queen in a pack of cards [? from sense 2a above].

1919

W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 33: mick [...] (2) a queen in a pack of cards.

3. (US campus) anything easy, esp. an academic class or test [Mickey Mouse adj.¹ (4)].

1967–8		Baker et al. CUSS 157: Mick Easy course.
1989		P. Munro Sl. U. 130: I heard that Astro 3 is a mick.

4. see mickey n.¹ (3)

In phrases

at the micks (adj.) (also at the mix) [pun on micks/mix v. + ? ref. to sense 1a above, a (rowdy) Irishman]

causing trouble.

1977

D. Powis Signs of Crime 193: Mick’s, at the Causing trouble [...] Mix, at the See Mick’s, at the.

mick n.1

In phrases

mick n.¹