maffick

present singular third person mafficks · participle present mafficking · participle past mafficked · past mafficked

1. historicalintransitiveTo celebrate a victory in a boisterous manner.

   “[…] but if to be foreign is to be mad, I think I’d rather be English.” “There!” cried Miss Haymer. “That’s typical! Pure jingoism, Connie! You can’t maffick under my roof! […]”

   1932, William Plomer, chapter 14, in The Case Is Altered, London: Chatto & Windus, published 1970, pages 242–243

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   […] we crown our work by putting into our children’s hands a book that reeks of Jingoism, Imperialism, and Patriotism; that “mafficks” on every other page, that sings the glories of all the ruffianly kings who bore rule in the Dark Ages, and never fails to applaud their most disreputable military adventures!

   1906, Arthur Machen, chapter 5, in Dr. Stiggins: His Views and Principles, London: Francis Griffiths, page 116

   […] father has given a day from business, mother has helped, even those shiny-headed nuts, the sons, have condescended to assist, and now villadom, feeling a little safer, is ready with the dinner-bell, its characteristic instrument of music, to maffick at the victories it has done its best to spoil.

   1914, H. G. Wells, chapter 3, in The War That Will End War, London: F. & C. Palmer, page 22

plural mafficks

1. historicalThe boisterous celebration of a victory.

   This, needless to say, ended the maffick and put a damper on the rest of the VE Day celebrations.

   2000, L. Anthony Leicester, chapter 13, in Flights into Night: Reminiscences of a World War Two, RAF Wellington Pilot, Oxford: Isis, page 249

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   But far the greater number of the inhabitants lead a sober life, only breaking out into occasional excess on “mafficks” of authorised national rejoicing, on the days of public holiday, or on the last night of the year, and other periods of unusual solemnity.

   1901, Charles Masterman, “Realities at Home”, in The Heart of the Empire, London: Unwin, page 25

   War gives to them something of the excitement of the public-house; and much as I hate the passion of jingoism among those to whom fortune has given the education and opportunity to think, I recognise that a slum “on the Maffick” was a thing far less degrading to human nature than the calculations of financiers or the plots of statesmen.

   1904, Brougham Villiers, chapter 2, in The Opportunity of Liberalism, London: Unwin, page 29

   It was a clandestine “maffick,” but was all the more exuberant because we had the satisfaction of knowing that we had outwitted the authorities completely, they being in utter ignorance of our celebration.

   c. 1920, Henry C. Mahoney, Frederick A. Talbot, Interned in Germany, London: Sampson Low, Marston, pages 78-79