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Mug vs Nick - What's the difference?

mug | nick |

As an adjective mug

is (archaic) easily fooled, gullible.

As a noun mug

is a large cup for hot liquids, usually having a handle and used without a saucer.

As a verb mug

is to strike in the face.

As a proper noun nick is

a diminutive of the male given name nicholas.

mug

English

Adjective

(mugger)
  • (archaic) Easily fooled, gullible.
  • * 1920 , (Herman Cyril McNeile), Bulldog Drummond Chapter 1
  • "Great heavens! Is it?" Drummond helped himself to marmalade. "And to think that I once pictured myself skewering Huns with it. Do you think anybody would be mug enough to buy it, James?"

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A large cup for hot liquids, usually having a handle and used without a saucer.
  • (slang) The face, often used deprecatingly.
  • What an ugly mug .
  • (slang, vulgar) A gullible or easily-cheated person.
  • He’s a gullible mug – he believed her again.
  • (UK, slang) A stupid or contemptible person.
  • Synonyms

    * (face) mush * (gullible person) See

    Derived terms

    (face) * mug book * mug shot (gullible person) * mug’s game

    See also

    * cup * pannikin

    Descendants

    * Finnish: (l) * Swedish: (l)

    Verb

    (mugg)
  • To strike in the face.
  • *1821 , The Fancy , i. p.261:
  • *:Madgbury showed game, drove Abbot in a corner, but got well Mugg'd.
  • *1857 , "The Leary Man", in Anglicus Ducange, The Vulgar Tongue
  • *:And if you come to fibbery, You must Mug one or two,
  • *1866 , London Miscellany , 5 May, p.102:
  • *:"Suppose they had Mugged' you?" / "Done what to me?" / "' Mugged you. Slogged you, you know."
  • (lb) To assault for the purpose of robbery.
  • (lb) To exaggerate a facial expression for communicative emphasis; to make a face, to pose, as for photographs or in a performance, in an exaggerated or affected manner.
  • :
  • (lb) To photograph for identification; to take a mug shot.
  • *
  • *:The Bat—they called him the Bat.. He'd never been in stir, the bulls had never mugged him, he didn't run with a mob, he played a lone hand, and fenced his stuff so that even the fence couldn't swear he knew his face.
  • Learn or review a subject as much as possible in a short time; cram.
  • References

    Derived terms

    * mug off * mug up

    References

    * *

    Anagrams

    * ----

    nick

    English

    (wikipedia nick)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A small cut in a surface.
  • # A particular point or place considered as marked by a nick; the exact point or critical moment.
  • in the nick of time
  • #*, II.20:
  • Truely he flies when he is even upon the nicke , and naturally hasteneth to escape it, as from a step whereon he cannot stay or containe himselfe, and feareth to sinke into it.
  • #* Howell
  • to cut it off in the very nick
  • # (printing, dated) A notch cut crosswise in the shank of a type, to assist a compositor in placing it properly in the stick, and in distribution.
  • Meanings connoting something small.
  • # (cricket) A small deflection of the ball off the edge of the bat, often going to the wicket-keeper for a catch.
  • # (real tennis) The point where the wall of the court meets the floor.
  • # (genetics) One of the single-stranded DNA segments produced during nick translation.
  • (archaic) A nixie, or water-sprite.
  • * 1879 , Viktor Rydberg, The Magic of the Middle Ages (p.201)
  • *:imps, giants, trolls, forest-spirits, elves and hobgoblins in and on the earth; nicks , river-sprites in the water, fiends in the air, and salamanders in the fire.
  • a user's reserved nick on an IRC network
  • (UK, slang) In the expressions in bad nick'' and ''in good nick : condition.
  • The car I bought was cheap and in good nick .
  • * '>citation
  • (British, slang) A police station or prison.
  • He was arrested and taken down to Sun Hill nick [police station] to be charged.
    He's just been released from Shadwell nick [prison] after doing ten years for attempted murder.

    Derived terms

    * in the nick of time

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To make a nick or notch in; to cut or scratch in a minor way.
  • I nicked myself while I was shaving.
  • # To make a cross cut or cuts on the underside of (the tail of a horse, in order to make the animal carry it higher).
  • # To mar; to deface; to make ragged, as by cutting nicks or notches in.
  • #* Prior
  • And thence proceed to nicking sashes.
  • #* Shakespeare
  • The itch of his affection should not then / Have nicked his captainship.
  • To suit or fit into, as by a correspondence of nicks; to tally with.
  • * Camden
  • Words nicking and resembling one another are applicable to different significations.
  • # To hit at, or in, the nick; to touch rightly; to strike at the precise point or time.
  • #* L'Estrange
  • The just season of doing things must be nicked , and all accidents improved.
  • # To throw or turn up (a number when playing dice); to hit upon.
  • #* {{quote-book, year=1773
  • , author=Oliver Goldsmith , title=She Stoops to Conquer , text=My old luck: I never nicked seven that I did not throw ames ace three times following.}}
  • # (cricket) to hit the ball with the edge of the bat and produce a fine deflection
  • (obsolete) To nickname; to style.
  • * Ford
  • For Warbeck, as you nick him, came to me.
  • (slang) To steal.
  • Someone's nicked my bike!
  • (transitive, British, slang) To arrest.
  • The police nicked him climbing over the fence of the house he'd broken into.