mulligrubs \MUHL-i-gruhbz\, noun:
Ill temper; colic; grumpiness.
"That's a comfortable place to be." The barber chuckled. "You're a philosopher, sir, a philosopher." "I am, but I'm a blue one. I have the blue mulligrubs."
-- Brian Lynch, The Winter of Sorrow
Right Rosa Solis, as ever washed mulligrubs out of a moody brain!
-- Sir Walter Scott, The Waverley Novels
It is easy enough to say that a pessimist is a person afflicted with an incurable case of mulligrubs — one whom nothing in all earth or heaven or hades pleases; one who usually deserves nothing, yet grumbles if he gets it.
-- William Cowper Brann, "Beauty and the Beast," Brann: The Iconoclast
This fanciful formation was developed in 1599 as a synonym for 'a fit of the blues' and an alteration of megrims.
No comments:
Post a Comment