muzz

English

Etymology

Uncertain.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mʌz/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌz

Verb

muzz (third-person singular simple present muzzes, present participle muzzing, simple past and past participle muzzed)

1. (slang, now rare) To study intently; to pore over. [from 18th c.]
   • 1903, Francis Markham with Sir Clements Robert Markham, “A Westminster Glossary”, in Recollections of a town boy at Westminster, 1849–1855, page 230:

     MUZZ: To be studious. ‘I was muzzing up my Virgil.’

2. (slang, obsolete) To hang around aimlessly; to loiter. [18th c.]
   • 1779, Frances Burney, Journals & Letters, Penguin, published 2001, page 105:

     ‘If You but knew, cried I, to whom I am going to Night! and who I shall see to Night! – you would not dare keep me muzzing here!’

3. (slang) To make muzzy or hazy; to confuse. [from 18th c.]