Masher vs Macher - What's the difference?
masher | macher |
PPA243,M1 p. 243] ([http://www.archive.org/stream/songsofthesea00lelarich/songsofthesea00lelarich_djvu.txt full text)
: It was introduced by the well-known gypsy family of actors, C., among whom Romany was habitually spoken. The word “masher” or “mash” means in that tongue to allure, delude, or entice. It was doubtless much aided in its popularity by its quasi-identity with the English word. But there can be no doubt as to the gypsy origin of “mash” as used on the stage. I am indebted for this information to the late well-known impresario [Albert Marshall] Palmer of New York, and I made a note of it years before the term had become at all popular.
a man who makes often unwelcome advances to women
*around 1900 , O. Henry,
*:"Oh, gee!" remarked the Girl from Sieber-Mason's, glancing up with the most capable coolness. "Ain't there any way to ever get rid of you mashers ? I've tried everything from eating onions to using hatpins. Be on your way, Freddie."
a fashionable man, a dandy, a fop
(rare) A man who molests women, as in a subway.
an important person, often in the negative sense of self-important; a bigwig
*2005': An ordinary man doesn’t jump the Snake River Canyon / with nothing underneath his ass / but a two-wheeled, fin-stabilised X-1 Skycycle / and a seven-figure guarantee from some '''macher in LA. — August Kleinzahler , in 'A Valentine’s: Regarding the Impractibility of Our Love', ''London Review of Books , Vol. 27 No.20, 20 October 2005, page 6.
*2007': Finally, Mr. Wall Street '''macher , there's our own Abe Silverfish, a man who has editing awards from prestige film festivals in Tanganyika and Bali. — Woody Allen, in 'Calisthenics, Poison Ivy, Final Cut', ''Mere Anarchy
As nouns the difference between masher and macher
is that masher is one who, or that which, mashes or masher can be a man who makes often unwelcome advances to women while macher is one who makes; person or thing that makes or produces something.masher
English
Etymology 1
Etymology 2
EitherMash Note] at World Wide Words[http://books.google.com/books?id=j41z0yeKbeIC&pg=PA195&dq=masher The City in Slang], by Irving L. Allen, [http://books.google.com/books?id=j41z0yeKbeIC&pg=PA195&dq=masher p. 195] by analogy withThe Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, as cited at [http://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2007/03/mash-notes.html The Grammarphobia Blog: Mash notes], March 16, 2007 . Originally used in theater,Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang and recorded in US in 1870s. Either originally borrowed as masher, from (masha), or from . Leland writes of the etymology:Preface to poem “The Masher”, in his
Songs of the Sea and Lays of the Land],[http://books.google.com/books?id=B2GmNo96450C&printsec=frontcover