ETYMOLOGY
from straddle (with the legs astride)
EXAMPLE
“…If he even seen a straddle-bug start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to get wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound for and how long he was on the road. …”
From: The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County,
By S. L. Clemens (Mark Twain), 1867
ETYMOLOGY
– from Danish dialect mosle, musle (to be dull or lazy at work)
EXAMPLE
“…She’s no-but a poor moozles…”
From: The Fenland, Past and Present
Samuel Henry Miller, Sydney Barber Josiah Skertchly, 1878
ETYMOLOGY
– ? from cob (n. a blow; vb. to strike) + nobble (vb. to strike, to hit)
EXAMPLE
“…Charles: He who would from parties rob’ll
Finds out he’s in the wrong box.
Clem.: Him we’ll capture and cobnobble,
Open locks whoever knocks.”
From: Lacy’s Acting Edition of Plays, Dramas, Farces, Extravaganzas, Etc., Etc.
Volume 93, 1871
Robert Macaire, Or, The Roadside Inn Turned Inside Out.
By Henry J. Byron, Scene II
ETYMOLOGY
from Anglo-Norman huniss-, Anglo-Norman and Old French honiss-, extended stem of Anglo-Norman hunir, Anglo-Norman and Old French honir (French honnir ) to shame, to humiliate, to ruin, to damage
FIRST DOCUMENTED USE
a1325 – see EXAMPLE below
EXAMPLE
“…Me sholde him [sc. Christ] hounschy & skorne boþe ffer & neye.….”
From: The Southern Passion
A Middle English poem;
Edited by Beatrice Daw Brown, 1927
Lexicophilia 