or mollygrubs, subs. (colloquial).—1. Colic; the COLLYWOBBLES (q.v.).
1619. BEAUMONT and FLETCHER, Monsieur Thomas, ii. 2. ‘Whose dog lies sick o’ th’ MULLIGRUBS?’
1634. S. ROWLEY, The Noble Souldier, iv. 2. Cor. The Divell lyes sicke of the MULLIGRUBS.
1719. D’URFEY, Wit and Mirth; or Pills to Purge Melancholy, v. 311. The pox, the MULLIGRUBS.
1738. SWIFT, Polite Conversation, Dial. 1. What! you are sick of the MULLIGRUBS with eating chopt hay?
1837–40. HALIBURTON (‘Sam Slick’), The Clockmaker, p. 388 (ed. 1862). It draws the cold out, and keeps it from flyin’ to the stomack, and saves you a fit of the MULLIGRUBS p’raps.
1887. W. E. HENLEY, Villon’s Good-Night.
| You coppers, narks, and dubs… | |
| Who gave me mumps and MULLIGRUBS. |
2. (colloquial).—MUBBLE-FUBBLES (q.v.). See quot. 1748.
1599. NASHE, Lenten Stuffe, in Works, v. 280. Wherwith Peters successour was so in his MULLIEGRUMS that he had thought to haue buffeted him, & cursed him with bell book & candle.
1748. T. DYCHE, A New General English Dictionary (5 ed.). MULLIGRUBS (S.) a pretended or counterfeit sullenness, a resolute, and fixed, and artificial displeasure, in order to gain some point desired.
1785. GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.
1811. A. SCOTT, Poems, p. 19, ‘The Insolvent Debtor.’
| Waes me, the MULLIGRUMPHS she’s ta’en, | |
| An’ toss’d him wi’ a vengefu’ wap | |
| Frae out her silk saft downy lap. |
1822. SCOTT, The Fortunes of Nigel, xxi. Repeating, as the rich cordial trickled forth in a smooth oily stream—‘Right Rosa Solis, as ever washed MULLIGRUBS out of a moody brain.’
1823. BADCOCK (‘Jon Bee’), Dictionary of the Turf, etc., s.v.
1895. H. B. MARRIOTT-WATSON, The King’s Treasure, in The New Review, July, p. 6. But what’s gone is gone, and to curl up with the MULLYGRUBS because the milk is a trifle sour, is neither to your credit nor to mine. And that’s plain, I says.
