Chapter Malt ... Meal to Man of Brass of M by Brewer's Phrase & Fable

Malt ... Meal to Man of Brass

Malt ... Meal When the malt gets aboon the meal. When persons, after dinner, get more or less fuddled.

“When the malt begins to get aboon the meal, they'll begin to speak about government in kirk and state.”- Sir W. Scott: Old Mortality, chap. iv

Maltese Cross Made thus:

Malthusian (A). A disciple of Malthus, whose political doctrines are laid down in his Essay on the Principles of Population.

Malthusian Doctrine That population increases more than the means of increasing subsistence does, so that in time, if no check is put upon the increase of population, many must starve or all be ill-fed. Applied to individual nations, like Britain, it intimated that something must be done to check the increase of population, as all the land would not suffice to feed its inhabitants.

Malum in Latin, means an apple; and “malus, mala, malum” means evil. Southey, in his Commonplace Book, quotes a witty etymon given by Nicolson and Burn, making the noun derived from the adjective, in allusion, I suppose, to the apple eaten by Eve. Of course, malum (an apple) is the Greek melon or malon (an apple-tree).

Malum in Se (Latin). What is of itself wrong, and would be so even if no law existed against its commission, as lying, murder, theft.

Malum Prohibitum (Latin). What is wrong merely because it is forbidden, as eating a particular fruit was wrong in Adam and Eve, because they were commanded not to do so. Doing secular work on the Sabbath.

Malvolio Steward to Olivia, in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night.

Mamamouchi A mock honour. Better be a country gentleman in England than a foreign Mamamouchi. The honour is conferred on M. Jourdain. (Molière: Bourgeois Gentilhomme.)

Mambrino's Helmet was of pure gold, and rendered the wearer invulnerable. It was taken possession of by Rinaldo (Orlando Furioso). Cervantes tells us of a barber who was caught in a shower, and to protect his hat clapped his brazen basin on his head. Don Quixote insisted that this basin was the enchanted helmet of the Moorish king.

Mamelon (2 syl., French). A mound in the shape of a woman's breast. These artificial mounds were common in the siege of Sebastopol. (Latin, mamma, a breast.)

Mamelukes (2 syl.) or Mamalukes (Arabic, mamluc, a slave). A name given in Egypt to the slaves of the beys brought from the Caucasus, and formed into a standing army. In 1254 these military “slaves” raised one of their body to the supreme power, and Noureddin Ali, the founder of the Baharites, gave twenty-three sultans; in 1832 the dynasty of the Borjites, also Mamlues, succeeded, and was followed by twenty-one successors. Selim I., Sultan of Turkey, overthrew the Mamluc kingdom in 1517, but allowed the twenty-four beys to be elected from their body. In 1811, Mohammed Ali by a wholesale massacre annihilated the Mamelukes, and became viceroy of Egypt.

Mamma, Mother The former is Norman-French, and the latter Anglo-Saxon. (See Papa .)

Mammet A puppet, a favourite, an idol. A corruption of Mahomet. Mahometanism being the most prominent form of false religion with which Christendom was acquainted before the Reformation, it became a generic word to designate any false faith; even idolatry is called mammetry.

Mammon The god of this world. The word in Syriac means riches. (See Milton: Paradise Lost, bk. i. 678.) His speech in the council is book ii. 229, etc.
   Mammon. In Spenser's Faërie Queene, Mammon