mug, you

mug, you
   ‘What do you mean, you mug?’ says a male American speaker to another man, in Mae West’s The Pleasure Man. In the Laurel and Hardy film Pack up your Troubles a sergeant addresses a group of soldiers as ‘you mugs’. A Salute to the Great McCarthy, by Barry Oakley, has an Australian football setting. The narrator hears the crowd jeering at him: ‘Wake up McCarthy! You mug!’ The word is roughly the equivalent of ‘fool’ or ‘dupe’, the idea behind it being that a mug is something into which you can pour almost anything. A simpleton can likewise be persuaded to believe almost anything.
   The existence of ‘mug’ in this slang sense led to the use of the last name ‘Muggins’ for similar purposes. ‘You Muggins’ is therefore still occasionally heard as a mild insult.

A dictionary of epithets and terms of address . . 2015.

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  • mug up — verb study intensively, as before an exam I had to bone up on my Latin verbs before the final exam • Syn: ↑cram, ↑grind away, ↑drum, ↑bone up, ↑swot, ↑get up, ↑swot up, ↑bone …   Useful english dictionary

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  • mug up — PHRASAL VERB If you mug up a subject or mug up on it, you study it quickly, so that you can remember the main facts about it. [BRIT, INFORMAL] [V P n (not pron)] ...visitors who want to mug up their knowledge in the shortest possible time... [V P …   English dictionary

  • mug — I UK [mʌɡ] / US noun [countable] Word forms mug : singular mug plural mugs * 1) a cup with straight sides and no saucer, used mainly for hot drinks a coffee mug a) a large glass with a handle used for drinking beer b) the liquid in a mug, or the… …   English dictionary

  • mug up — phrasal verb [intransitive/transitive] Word forms mug up : present tense I/you/we/they mug up he/she/it mugs up present participle mugging up past tense mugged up past participle mugged up British informal mug up (on) something to quickly learn… …   English dictionary

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