muzzle v.
1. (later use Can./US) to kiss and fondle, esp. in a rough manner.
![]() | Relapse i, 2: Ah, you young, hot, lusty thief, let me muzzle you (Kisses him). | |
![]() | Wise-crack Dict. 11/1: Muzzle – Kiss with no time off for air. | |
![]() | Hollywood Girl 83: My God do I have to be mauled and muzzled over by every man I go out with. | |
![]() | Dly Atheneum in McGill Dly 19 Dec. 4: Hugging and kissing [...] Lollygagging, necking, pitching honey, smooching, tonsil swabbing, pawing, muzzling, flinging woo and rotten logging are other names applied to the same activity. | |
![]() | Amboy Dukes 85: We’ll sit here and muzzle. | |
![]() | Adam’s Rib 67: I saw him muzzlin’ that tall job. | |
![]() | Stories Cops Only Tell Each Other 131: ‘So what if each week I don’t get to muzzle a new broad! I’m satisfied to go home and kiss my tired and sometimes nagging wife’ . |
2. to fight, to thrash.
![]() | Proc. Old Bailey 28 Oct. 635/1: I was assaulted by sixteen or twenty desperate characters, who cried out, ‘Tom, don't go; muzzle the b—g—rs, chiv ’em!’ (which means to cut.) I was knocked down, and my head beat in a most dreadful manner. | |
![]() | Proc. Old Bailey 14 Feb. 222/2: Cook said, if I ever split, he would muzzle me (both the prisoners were present) - Pearce said if I did not go on with it, he would scrag me,. | |
![]() | Proc. Old Bailey 3 Apr. 987: Bassett said if he did not treat them they would muzzle him, and his Moll too. | |
![]() | Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) Feb. 4/3: If you collar me, I’m blow’d if I don’t muzzle you. | |
, | ![]() | Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. |
![]() | (con. 1840s–50s) London Labour and London Poor I 16/1: It is often said in admiration of such a man that ‘he could muzzle half a dozen bobbies before breakfast’. | |
![]() | Proc. Old Bailey 22 Nov. 112: If I had been one of them I should have turned round and muzzled him. |
3. to hit in the face.
![]() | Proc. Old Bailey 5 Apr. 342/2-343/1: He fought very hard, and struck me in the jaw [...] he said, ‘I will muzzle you’. | |
![]() | Proc. Old Bailey 9 Aug. 482: He said, if I attempted to come on the other side of the bar, to put him out, he would muzzle me, and wring my nose out of my face. | |
![]() | Bell’s Life in Sydney 14 Feb. 1/2: Suddenly hitting up, [he] ‘muzzled’ his man. | |
![]() | Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 38/1: Not his lovely Polly, who ‘muzzled’ him in the Artichoke. | |
![]() | Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 12 Oct. n.p.: O’Connor [...] was brought before the Judge under a charge [...] of ‘muzzling’ [...] says he, ‘I’ll blacken the white of yer eye’. | |
![]() | Life and Adventures of a Cheap Jack 67: Now, look here, if you rend my clothes I’ll muzzle you. |
4. to throttle, to garrotte.
, , | ![]() | Sl. Dict. |
![]() | Sl. Dict. | |
![]() | Grafter (1922) 84: ‘[H]e muzzled me. I suppose he thought I was silvery, He’s a mug garrotter, or he wouldn’t have picked me out’. |
5. (orig. US) to obtain, to take, to steal.
![]() | Man o’ War 154: Dick [...] muzzles two belonging to some of the cooks [HDAS]. | |
![]() | Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant. | |
![]() | Colonial Reformer Ch. ix: I thought, Sir, as you’d like a snack, so I muzzled enough grub for two. |
6. to drink heavily [dial. muzzle, to drink to excess].
![]() | Sl. and Its Analogues. |