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mug

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Pronunciation

Etymology

The drinking vessel is of uncertain origin.[2][3][4] It is apparently related to Dutch mok (“mug”), Low German muck and mukke, Norwegian mugge (“open can or jug”), Danish mugge, Swedish mugg (“mug”) and Norman moque (“jug, cup”), but the OED finds the relationships between these words unclear and their further origin unknown.[2][5][6] Most dictionaries think the English word probably came from Scandinavian,[7][8][9][10][11] Barnhart and the AHD only perhaps,[12][13] and Etymonline also allows a Low German source.[4] Weekley wondered whether it was originally a personal name, as with jug.[14] The slang sense "face" is probably the same word, perhaps from the 18th-century drinking mugs made in the shape of a grotesque human face;[2][12][7][15][10] Liberman instead traces it to a word like Scots mudgeon (“scowl, grimace”), comparing curmudgeon.[16] The verb "to strike in the face", and later "to attack and rob", was formed from the noun "face",[2][12][4][7] although Merriam-Webster takes the sense "rob" as a back-formation from mugger.[3] The sense "fool, dupe" probably also comes from the face, from a foolish or stupid look.[2][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

A dry measure, used for salt: a single record of 1400.[2][15] From the early 16th century it was a large earthenware bowl, pot or jug, at first in Scots and northern English, as in Gavin Douglas's Aeneid (before 1522);[2][8][7] Barnhart and Etymonline date the sense "bowl, pot, jug" to 1570 and the 1560s.[12][4]

Semantic evolution

The ordinary drinking mug, usually cylindrical and with a handle, is recorded from 1664, in Charles Cotton,[2][3] and a mugful, or the drink in it, from 1682, in Dryden's Mac Flecknoe.[2] Johnson (1755) defined it simply as a cup to drink from.[17] In the US a mug was also a silver cup given as a prize (1791),[2] whence mug-hunter (1883), a contemptuous name for someone who entered contests only to win prizes.[4] The slang sense "face", especially an ugly one, appears in 1708;[2][12][4] the mouth followed in 1820, a grimace in 1844, and in American English a photograph of the face, especially in police records, in 1887,[2][12] which led to mug shot.[4] From the face came the boxers' verb "to strike in the face" (1818), widened to "beat up, attack" (1846) and to "attack and rob" (1864), now the usual sense;[12][2][4] mugger is recorded from 1865.[12] Word Origins points out that people were robbed in public places long before the 1860s, but not mugged.[15] Theatre slang made the verb "to pull faces, overact" (1855, in Dickens's Little Dorrit).[12][4][3][2] Thieves' slang used mug for a dupe or fool by 1851,[4] which gave mug's game, a foolish or unprofitable activity (by 1890).[4][15] In Australian and New Zealand slang the verb also meant to kiss or fondle (1822).[2] In northern English dialect, to mug someone was to beat or thrash them.[18]

Timeline

  • 1400 – a dry measure, used for salt.[2]
  • before 1522 – a large earthenware bowl, pot or jug.[2]
  • 1664 – a drinking mug.[2][3]
  • 1708 – slang, the face.[2][12][4]
  • 1818 – boxing slang, to strike in the face.[2][12][4]
  • 1846 – to beat up, attack.[12][4]
  • 1851 – thieves' slang, a dupe or fool.[4]
  • 1855 – to pull faces, overact.[12][3]
  • 1864 – to attack and rob.[2][12][4]
  • 1887 – US, a photograph of a person's face, especially for police records.[2][12]

Modern meaning

Noun

  1. A drinking cup, usually cylindrical and with a handle, normally used without a saucer.
  2. The amount a mug holds; a mugful.
  3. (slang) A person's face or mouth: Get your ugly mug out of my kitchen.
  4. (slang) A grimace.
  5. (slang) A mug shot.
  6. (British slang) A gullible person; a dupe or fool.

Verb

  1. To attack and rob someone, especially in a public place: She was mugged on her way home from the station.
  2. To make exaggerated faces, especially for an audience or a camera; to overact.
  3. (US slang) To photograph a person's face for police records.

Word family

  • mugful
  • muggee
  • mugger
  • mug shot
  • mug's game

Usage notes

Other words spelled mug have separate origins.[2][7] In English dialect a mug is a fog or drizzle, and the verb "to drizzle" is recorded from about 1400; both probably come from Scandinavian, compare Old Norse mugga (“mist, drizzle”).[2][7][3] The British mug up, to study hard (1848), is of unknown origin,[2][7][3] and so is mug, a Scottish and northern breed of sheep with a woolly face (1596).[2][7][3]

References

  1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  5. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  6. ^ Skeat, Walter W. (1911), A Concise Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, new ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  10. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  13. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  14. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  15. ^ a b c d e Cresswell, Julia (2021), Oxford Dictionary of Word Origins, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  16. ^ Liberman, Anatoly (2008), An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press
  17. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
  18. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)