man in the moon

• man on the moon

man in the moon

1. An image of a man perceived in the dark maria and light highlands of the full moon. Now usually seen as a human face, in older traditions he is a man with a burden on his back, or accompanied by a small dog.
   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358, [Act II, scene ii], page 10:

     Cal. Ha’ſt thou not dropt from heauen ?
     Ste. Out o’th Moone I doe aſſure thee. I was the Man ith’ Moone when time was.
     Cal. I haue ſeene thee in her : and I doe adore thee : My Miſtris ſhew’d me thee, and thy Dog, and thy Buſh.

2. (UK politics, slang, obsolete) A man who would pay for election expenditure and electors' expenses, as long as the latter voted his way.
   • 1851, Great Britain House of Commons, Reports from the Committees (volume 6, page 17)

     235. To whom did you say that you wanted a ticket for home? — The stranger.
     236. The Man in the Moon? — Yes.
     […]
     245. And I may ask you, was it also included as one of the tickets in the amount that the Man in the Moon paid you?

   • 1862, Thomas Campbell Foster, ‎William Francis Finlason, Reports of Cases Decided at Nisi Prius and at the Crown Side on Circuit (page 330)

     […] and he did not vote at all. Next came a Thomas Stead, a shopkeeper, in Northgate, Wakefield, who had received 60l., which was paid to him by Dan Robinson, an understrapper to the "Man in the Moon."

• know someone from the man in the moon

• (politics): 1873, John Camden Hotten, The Slang Dictionary

• man in the moon on Wikipedia.Wikipedia