mot, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

mot n.

also mott, motte

[prob. Du. mot, a woman; less likely is Fr. amourette, a girlfriend; note OED classifies mot as alt. sp. of mort n.¹]

(orig. UK/US/Irish)

1. a prostitute.

1773		‘Flashman of St. Giles’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (2007) 63: The first time I saw the flaming mot, Was at the sign of the Porter Pot .
1780		‘Birmingham Sal’ in Lover’s Jubilee 4: From Manchester to London town, / The Bagnios I frequented, / And there I flash’t a Mot of renown, / With powder and perfume scented.
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1822		Tom and Jerry; A Musical Extravaganza 54: Leery flash Mot, a knowing Cyprian.
1829		‘Pickpocket’s Chaunt’ trans. of ‘En roulant de vergne en vergne’ in Vidocq (1829) IV 262: And we shall caper a-heel-and-toeing, A Newgate hornpipe some fine day; With the mots their ogles throwing.
1835		‘The Spring Bedstead’ in Knowing Chaunter 17: So, says my leary mot, / I’ll go and have a flare-up! / So to a crib we sped, / To do as she requested.
1839		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 20 Apr. 127/3: When Charley Mott a wooing went / A pretty wife he got; / But really he should not resent, / Her being called a Mott .
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 8 Oct. n.p.: All the oils, pommades, rouges, powders [...] are nearly ‘used up’ by the motts.
c.1844		Coal Hole Companion in Bold (1979) 91: If desire your mind doth tease / And you will pay the usual fees / You very quickly can get ease / from the frisky mots of London.
1855		Yokel’s Preceptor 31: Donner, Woman, either Mot or not.
1855		Life in Boston & N.Y. (Boston, MA) 14 Apr. n.p.: If another of those railway station mots stops there, names will be published.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 175: MOTT, a girl of indifferent character.
1860		N.E. Police Gaz. (Boston, MA) 18 Aug. 7/4: This hag has got two mots in her den [...] ever ready to accommodate greenies and land sharks.
1870		Cythera’s Hymnal 56: He’s been with some mot, / And the glue he has got, / And guv it to us, the whole biling.
1874		Derbyshire Courier 12 Dec. 7/1: Local Flash language [...] A mott, a woman.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 10: A bludger and his mot ‘ticed a cully into the ‘Deadhouse’ / A man who robs in company with a prostitute and his woman enticed a victim into the ‘Deadhouse’.
1882		Cremorne I 27: As a flash mot she’d be a gold mine.
1887		W.E. Henley ‘Villon’s Good-Night’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 174: With fawneys on your dexter famm – / A mot’s good-night to one and all!
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 50: Mot, a girl of suspicious character.

2. a woman, a wife.

1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
a.1789		G. Parker (attrib.) ‘The Sandman’s Wedding’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 65: No sneer from cully, mot, or froe / Dare then approach my Bess for Joe.
c.1800		‘Tom the Drover’ No. 30 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: Suk’ May, she’s a saucy blowen, and can [illegible] with any Mott in the Town.
c.1811		‘A Leary Mot’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 77: Rum ould mog was a leary flash mot.
1821		J. Burrowes Life in St George’s Fields 18: Dick introduced his Pal to the prime bloods and swell mots.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 223: [He] was in close conversation with his mott in the corner.
1828		Sussex Advertiser 14 Apr. 4/3: Pitmen, colliers, bog-trotters, black-legs, ken-cadgers with their king’s motts, knights of the road, and also a few knights of the brush and moon.
1837–8		‘Slashing Costermonger’ in Cuckold’s Nest 10: I’m called by all the mots around, / The slashing costermonger.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 59: Hang me high up! if it arn’t a Wild-street shickster – Owen’s mot! I’ll pallary to her.
1848		Ladies’ Repository (N.Y.) Oct. VIII:37 316/2: Mott, any decent female, generally a mother or a sister, or wife.
1857		‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue 39: The paper makers get the tats and never tip the motts a posh.
c.1864		‘The Catalogue’ in Rakish Rhymer (1917) 10: Till ‘The Mots of Old’ came on the stage / And taught them both to sodger.
1867		H.L. Williams Ticket-of-Leave Man 11: Jem Dalton had discovered by his mott [...] that the old gentleman had a habit of keeping valuable diamonds.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. 9/2: The paper makers get the tats, and never tip the mots a posh, but fence the milky ones with some swag chovey bloak. The men who pretend they are from a paper mill obtain the rags, and never pay the women (of the houses they call at) anything, and then sell the white rags to some marine store dealer.
1900–10		Stephens & O’Brien Materials for a Dict. of Aus. Sl. [unpub. ms.] MOT OR MOTSY: a girl, sweetheart.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 241: One of them mots that do be in the packets of fags Stoer smokes that his old fellow welted hell out of him for one time he found out.
1942		(con. 1890s) S. O’Casey Pictures in the Hallway 141: Yes, a pretty mot, right enough, with her mop o’ curly red hair.
1956		B. Behan Quare Fellow (1960) Act I: If we did our wing first, we’d miss the mots hanging out the laundry.
1965		L. Dunne Goodbye to The Hill (1966) 15: I’d never seen one of them kiss the mot.
1979		J. Morrow Confessions of Proinsias O’Toole 28: If you’re feeling guilty about throwing a leg over his mot, you needn’t.
1981		(con. 1930s) P. Crosbie Your Dinner’s Poured Out! 117: He became her ‘fella’ and she became his ‘mot’.
1983		W. Trevor Fools of Fortune 120: Did you have a fancy for the mott yourself?
1994		(con. 1930s) K.C. Kearns Dublin Tenement Life 153: This particular woman that led the animal gang up Pimlico she was what we called a ‘mot’, a girlfriend, you know, of one of the animal gang fellas.
1998		J. O’Connor Salesman 287: And how d’y’know when a Northside mott has an orgasm, Homer?
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 124: Ah remembur this mot blabbin on abou’ fuckin Noraid an shite.

3. a criminal’s accomplice; a female criminal.

1829

Vidocq Memoirs (trans. W. McGinn) III 78: Here [...] is what you may call a mot, and nothing but a good one.

4. a public or lodging-house landlady.

1858		A. Mayhew Paved with Gold 256: We can sell ’em to the ‘mot’ (landlady) of the ‘libb-ken’ (lodging-house) for a good deal.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 217/2: After some altercation with the ‘mot’ of the ‘ken’ (mistress of the lodging-house) about the cleanliness of a knife or fork.

5. the mons veneris; thus the vagina.

1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) I 88: It was her naked belly and motte which struck me as she fell on me.
1889		C. Deveureux Venus in India I 50: That glorious hair, which formed the forest-like bush growing on that voluptuous motte, and shading a cunt.
1898		‘Suzan Aked’ The Simple Tale of Suzan Aked 43: Her hand, having no obstacle to oppose it, took possession of my fleshy motte and throbbing cunnie [...] ‘How nice! what a sweet, sweet little cunt!’.
c.1900		‘Ramrod’ Nocturnal Meeting 10: She [...] squeezed her daughter’s motte.
1997		Roger’s Profanisaurus in Viz 87 Dec. n.p.: mott n. Minge; mapatasi.
2000		M. Manning Get Your Cock Out 23: This bunch of mott slinging, fannyfarting, spunk burpers.

6. pubic hair, whether male or female; also attrib.

1888–94		‘Walter’ My Secret Life (1966) I 89: It was about the longest and thickest motte thatch I have yet felt. [Ibid.] 1973 X: I found to my annoyance [...] that crabs had assailed me, had lodged in motte, bum furrow, anus, and the wrinkles of my scrotum.
1889		C. Deveureux Venus in India I 37: Inch by inch I buried Johnnie in it, until my motte jammed against hers, and my balls hanging or rather squeezed, against her lovely white bottom, I could get in no further.
1898		‘Suzan Aked’ The Simple Tale of Suzan Aked 168: The way his hips sink between her thighs, as he presses his motte to hers.
1998		K. Sampson Awaydays 38: A compact shadow of mott — I thought she was going to be bald!

In derivatives

motting (n.)

pursuing women, esp. prostitutes.

1890–1904

Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

mottism (n.)

prostitution.

1846

Swell’s Night Guide 40: This sanctum-sanctorum is only to be approached by the first-rate blunted swell, and is the number one of cribberies, and the pinnacle of mott-ism.