subs. (old).—1. See quots. 1736 and 1796.
1620. PERCY, Folio MSS., p. 508, ‘Tom Longe.’ A health to all Ladyes that neuer used MERKIN.
16[?]. JONSON, A Song of the Moon [CUNNINGHAM and BELL (1870), iii. 465].
| The Moon commends her | |
| To the merry beards in hall, | |
| Those turn up and those that fall, | |
| Morts and MIRKINS that wag all, | |
| Tough, foul, or tender. |
1647–80. ROCHESTER, To the Author of a Play called ‘Sodom.’ Or wear some stinking MERKIN for a beard.
1673. COTTON, A Voyage to Ireland, iii. 26.
| By these the true colour one can no more know, | |
| Than by mouse-skins above-stairs the MERKIN below. |
1688. RANDLE HOLME, Academy of Armoury, 389. Some term it … MERKIN when set about the lower parts.
1720. E. PHILLIPS, New World of Words, s.v.
1724. E. COLES, English Dictionary, MERKIN (f. la mère, matrix) pubes (eminentia) mulieris.
1736. BAILY, English Dictionary, s.v. MERKIN … counterfeit hair for the privities of women.
1796. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd ed.), s.v. MERKIN, counterfeit hair for the private parts of a woman.
1873. HOTTEN, Slang Dictionary, s.v.
1889. BARRÈRE and LELAND, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, s.v.
2. (obsolete).—Fur.
1678. COTTON, Virgil Travestie, in Works (1725), Bk. iv. p. 90.
| Upon his Back he had a Jerkin | |
| Lin’d through, and through with sable MERKIN. |
3. (venery).—The female pudendum. For synonyms, see MONOSYLLABLE.
1656. R. FLETCHER, Martiall. Why dost thou reach thy MERKIN now half dust?
1661. Merry Drollery, ‘A Puritan’ [EBSWORTH (1876), p. 196].
| Her Zeal was in a sound, | |
| He edified her MERKIN | |
| Upside down. |
1719. A. SMITH, The History of the Lives of the Most Noted Highway-men, etc., ii. 6. A strange Whim in his Head; which was, to get the hairy Circle of her MERKIN.… This he dry’d well, and comb’d out.
4. (American thieves’).—Hair dye.
1859. G. W. MATSELL, Vocabulum; or, The Rogue’s Lexicon, s.v.
