The Thirty-Nine Steps (40 page)

mark
VERB
look at or notice
Mark but this flea, and mark in this (
The Flea
by John Donne)

maroons
NOUN
A maroon is someone who has been left in a place which it is difficult for them to
escape from, like a small island
if schooners, islands, and maroons
(
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson)

mast
NOUN
here mast means the fruit of forest trees
a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other mast
(
Gulliver’s Travels
by Jonathan Swift)

mate
VERB
defeat
Where Mars did mate the warlike Carthigens
(
Doctor Faustus Chorus
by Christopher Marlowe)

mealy
ADJ
Mealy when used to describe a face meant palid, pale or colourless
I only know two sorts of boys. Mealy boys, and beef-faced boys
(
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens)

middling
ADJ
fairly or moderately
she worked me middling hard for about an hour
(
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain)

mill
NOUN
a mill, or treadmill, was a device for hard labour or punishment in prison
Was you never on the mill?
(
Oliver Twist
by Charles Dickens)

milliner’s shop
NOUN
a milliner’s sold fabrics, clothing, lace and accessories; as time went on they specialized
more and more in hats
to pay their duty to their aunt and to a milliner’s shop just over the way
(
Pride and Prejudice
by Jane Austen)

minching un’ munching
PHRASE
how people in the north of England used to describe the way people from the south
speak
Minching un’ munching!
(
Wuthering Heights
by Emily Brontë)

mine
NOUN
gold
Whether both th’Indias of spice and mine
(
The Sun Rising
by John Donne)

mire
NOUN
mud
Tis my fate to be always ground into the mire under the iron heel of oppression
(
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
by Mark Twain)

miscellany
NOUN
a miscellany is a collection of many different kinds of things
under that, the miscellany began
(
Treasure Island
by Robert Louis Stevenson)