mug

• enPR: mŭg, IPA^(key): /mʌɡ/

• Audio (US)

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• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -ʌɡ

Early 16th century (originally Scots and northern English, denoting "earthenware, pot, jug"), of unknown origin, perhaps from North Germanic (compare Swedish mugg (“mug, jug”), Norwegian mugge (“pitcher, open can for warm drinks”), Danish mugge), or Low German mokke, mukke (“mug”), German Low German Muck (“drinking cup”), Dutch mok (“mug”), also of unknown origin. Perhaps related to Old Norse múgr (“mass, heap (of corn)”) and Old English muga (“stack”).[1] Compare also Middle English mug, mog (“a measure of salt”).

"Face" sense possibly from grotesque faces on certain drinking vessels. "Assault" sense of verb possibly from hitting someone in the face.

mug (plural mugs)

1. A large cup for beverages, usually having a handle and used without a saucer.
   

   A mug
2. (slang, often derogatory) The face.

   What an ugly mug.

3. (slang, derogatory) A gullible or easily-cheated person.

   He's a gullible mug – he believed her again.

4. (UK, Australia, derogatory, slang) A stupid or contemptible person.
5. (slang) A criminal.

mug (comparative mugger, superlative muggest)

1. (archaic) Easily fooled, gullible.
   • 1920, Herman Cyril McNeile, Bulldog Drummond Chapter 1

     "Great heavens! Is it?" Drummond helped himself to marmalade. "And to think that I once pictured myself skewering Huns with it. Do you think anybody would be mug enough to buy it, James?"

2. (Bermuda, slang) Uninteresting or unpleasant.
   • 2013 April 12, “Exclusive: Meet Derpuntae - Bermuda’s first meme”, in The Bermuda Sun‎, archived from the original on 2022-12-12:

     But anyways, I stayed back a second year and my papa was visiting when momma was opening de report card. Papa gave me de muggest moment in my life like.

   • 2020 February 4, @makim_ori, Twitter‎:

     So... complaining about Bermuda being boring/mug on a constant does what exactly?

• (face): mush, dial, phiz
• (gullible person): See Thesaurus:dupe

(face):

• mug book
• mug shot

(gullible person):

• mug’s game

• → Finnish: muki
• → Maltese: magg
• → Swedish: mugg
• → Welsh: mẁg, mỳg

• cup
• pannikin

mug (third-person singular simple present mugs, present participle mugging, simple past and past participle mugged)

1. (transitive, obsolete, UK) To strike in the face.
   • 1821, The Fancy, i. p.261:

     Madgbury showed game, drove Abbot in a corner, but got well Mugg'd.

   • 1857, "The Leary Man", in Anglicus Ducange, The Vulgar Tongue

     And if you come to fibbery, You must Mug one or two,

   • 1866, London Miscellany, 5 May, p.102:

     "Suppose they had Mugged you?" / "Done what to me?" / "Mugged you. Slogged you, you know."

2. (transitive) To assault for the purpose of robbery.
3. (intransitive) To exaggerate a facial expression for communicative emphasis; to make a face, to pose, as for photographs or in a performance, in an exaggerated or affected manner.

   The children weren't interested in sitting still for a serious photo; they mugged for the camera.

4. (transitive) To photograph for identification; to take a mug shot.[2]
   • 1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart; Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, OCLC 20230794, page 01:

     The Bat—they called him the Bat. […]. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.

5. (UK, Australia, Singapore, slang) To learn or review a subject as much as possible in a short time; cram.

• mug off
• mug up
• mugger
• muggee

• Douglas Harper (2001–2023), “mug”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
• mug at OneLook Dictionary Search

Informal variant of motherfucker.

mug (plural mugs)

1. (slang, African-American Vernacular) Motherfucker (usually in similes, e.g. "like a mug" or "as a mug")

• GUM, Gum, MGU, gum

From Dutch mug, from Middle Dutch mugge.

• IPA^(key): /mœχ/

mug (plural mugge, diminutive muggie)

1. (chiefly diminutive) mosquito (insect, elongated fly)

• → English: muggie

• mugë

From Proto-Albanian *smuga, cognate to Old English smoca (“smoke”), Old Irish múch (“smoke”), Armenian մուխ (mux).[1]

mug m (indefinite plural mugje, definite singular mugu, definite plural mugjet)

1. dusk, twilight

• mugull
• mugullon
• mugët

• mjegull
• murg
• muzg

From Old Norse mugg, from a Proto-Germanic derivative of Proto-Indo-European *mew-k- (“slimy, slippery”), see also Ancient Greek μύκης (múkēs, “mushroom”).

mug c or n (uncountable, singular indefinite mug, singular definite muggen or mugget)

1. mold

From Middle Dutch mugge, from Old Dutch *mugga, from Proto-West Germanic *muggju, from Proto-Germanic *mugjō (“midge”).

Compare Low German mügge, German Mücke, West Frisian mich, English midge, Danish myg.

• IPA^(key): /mʏx/

• audio

  (file)

• Hyphenation: mug
• Rhymes: -ʏx

mug f (plural muggen, diminutive mugje n or muggetje n)

1. A mosquito, a gnat, any fly of the suborder Nematocera except sometimes the larger tropical species (which are commonly called muskiet).
2. (figuratively) A bug, an insignificant individual.

   Van een mug een olifant maken

   To make a mountain out of a molehill (lit.: to make an elephant out of a mosquito)

• dansmug
• langpootmug
• malariamug
• muggenbeet
• muggengaas
• muggenolie
• muggenziften
• sneeuwmug
• steekmug
• tijgermug
• van een mug een olifant maken

• meuzie

• Afrikaans: mug
  • → English: muggie

Borrowed from English mug.

• IPA^(key): /mœɡ/

• Audio

  (file)

mug m (plural mugs)

1. a large cup, generally used to serve cold drinks, a mug

From Proto-Celtic *mogus, from Proto-Indo-European *mogʰus (“young person”). Cognate with Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌲𐌿𐍃 (magus, “boy”).

• IPA^(key): /muɣ/

mug m

1. male slave or servant, serf, bondman
   • c. 800, Würzburg Glosses on the Pauline Epistles, published in Thesaurus Palaeohibernicus (reprinted 1987, Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies), edited and with translations by Whitley Stokes and John Strachan, vol. I, pp. 499–712, Wb. 7^d10

     Mógi sidi uili do Día; acht do·rigénsat in descipuil dechor etarru et déu diib: is hed on ɔsecha-som hic.

     They are all servants to God; but the disciples had made a distinction between them and (made) gods of them; that is what he corrects here.

The nominative plural appears once as mógi, apparently by attraction to the i-stems.

• Irish: mogh

• G. Toner, M. Ní Mhaonaigh, S. Arbuthnot, D. Wodtko, M.-L. Theuerkauf, editors (2019), “mug, mog”, in eDIL: Electronic Dictionary of the Irish Language

mug

1. Romanization of 𒈮 (mug)

• IPA^(key): [muɡ]

mug (nominative plural mugs)

1. mouse (rodent of the family Muridae)

• nim
• sügaf
• süganim
• tuetaf
• tuetanim

• himug
• jimug
• mugil
• mugül

• rat
• visul
• yat