whiting-mop

English

	A user has added this entry to requests for verification⁽⁺⁾
	If it cannot be verified that this term meets our attestation criteria, it will be deleted. Feel free to edit this entry as normal, but do not remove `{{rfv}}` until the request has been resolved.

Noun

whiting-mop (plural whiting-mops)

(UK, obsolete) A young whiting.
- 1869 [1620], John Taylor, Works of John Taylor the Water-Poet‎^[1], The Spenser Society, "Taylors Travels to Prague in Bohemia", page 99:
  ...his silence must be, that though he beare and understand himselfe wronged, yet he must be as dumbe as a Gudgeon or a Whiting mop: and though his mouth be shut...
- 1996 [1638], Thomas Heywood, edited by Paul Merchant, Three Marriage Plays‎^[2], Manchester University Press, The Wise Woman of Hogsdon, act I, scene II, page 48:
  Chartley. Fear not, girl. Though I revel abroad o' days, I'll be with thee to bring o' nights, my little whiting mop.
- 1813 [1647], John Fletcher, The Works of Beaumont and Fletcher‎^[3], volume Thirteen, Edinburgh: John Ballantyne and Co., Doig and Stirling, w:The Maid in the Mill, act II, scene I, page 199:
  Bustopha. [Reading.] The thund'ring seas whose wat'ry fire
  Washes the whiting-mops,
  The gentle whale, whose feet so fell
  Flies o'er the mountains' tops—
(UK, obsolete) A pretty girl; a young or innocent woman.
- 1830 [1604], Thomas Dekker, John Webster, The Works of John Webster‎^[4], volume III, London: William Pickering, Westward Ho, act II, scene II, page 37:
  Mistress Birdlime. I see bashful lovers, and young bullocks, are knocked down at a blow. Come, come, drink this draught of cinnamon-water, and pluck up your spirits; up with 'em, up with 'em. Do you hear? the whiting mop has nibbled.
- 1813 [1633], Philip Massinger, edited by W. Gifford, The Plays‎^[5], 2nd edition, volume IV, London: G. & W. Nicol et al., The Guardian, act IV, scene II, page 207:
  Camillo. If 'twere a fish-day, though you like it not, I could say I have a stomach, and would content myself With this pretty whiting-mop.
- 1641, Thomas Jordan, Pictures of Passions, Fancies, & Affectations, Poetically Deciphered in variety of Characters.‎^[6], London: Robert Wood, A Sea-man.:
  The mightiest Whales are but his Play-fellows: Sharks are bis best Familiars, but (the more His grief) his pretty Whiting Mop's on shore...

Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “whiting-mop”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)