TO RIDE THE BLACK DONKEY, verb. phr. (costers’).—1. To cheat in weight.
2. (common).—To sulk; to be in ill-humour. Also see quot. 18[?].
1868. BREWER, Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, s.v. RIDE THE BLACK DONKEY. To be pigheaded, obstinate like a donkey. Black is added, not so much to designate the colour, as to express what is bad.
1888. C. J. DUNPHIE, The Chameleon, 182. We ourselves describe a man in the sulks as RIDING THE BLACK DONKEY.
