muckle

See also mickle

English [edit]

From Old English miċel, myċel.

muckle (uncountable)

muckle (comparative more muckle, superlative most muckle)

c. 1930, George S. Morris, song A Pair o Nicky-tams:

She clorts a muckle piece [sandwich] tae me, wi' different kinds o' jam,
An' tells me ilka nicht that she admires my Nicky Tams.
ibid:

Fan Annie roared, “Ye muckle gype, tak' aff yer Nicky Tams.”

A Dictionary of North East Dialect, Bill Griffiths, 2005, Northumbria University Press, ISBN 1904794165
A List of words and phrases in everyday use by the natives of Hetton-le-Hole in the County of Durham, F.M.T.Palgrave, English Dialect Society vol.74, 1896, [1]
muckle in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

muckle (third-person singular simple present muckles, present participle muckling, simple past and past participle muckled)

(US, dialectal) To latch onto something with the mouth.
- 1954, Elizabeth Ogilvie, The Dawning of the Day^[2], page 199:
  
  And how'd she get such a holt on you, Terence Campion, let alone the way she's muckled onto those Bennetts?
- 2002, William G. Wilkoff, The Maternity Leave Breastfeeding Plan^[3], ISBN 0743213459, page 87:
  
  Another technique for the baby who is having trouble muckling on involves a breast or nipple shield.
- 2004, William J. Vande Kopple, The Catch: Families, Fishing, and Faith^[4], ISBN 0802826776, page 18:
  
  When an exhausted sucker is hauled to the top of The Wall, usually its muckling circle of a mouth goes into a frenzied sucking spasm.
(rare) To talk big; to exaggerate.
- 1896, W.S. Gilbert, “The Grand Duke, or the Statutory Duel”, in The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan, published 1941:
  
  I told him all, / Both bad and good; / I bade him call — / He said he would: / I added much — the more I muckled, / The more that chuckling chummy chuckled!