Here and there turns up a […] savage mot. 1859, unknown author, “Literary Adventure. Life of Douglas Jerrold”, in North British Review:
‘He comes from Montreal, in Canada.’ ‘Why?’ she said, repeating Dr Johnson's mot with a forced sneer. 1970, John Glassco, Memoirs of Montparnasse, New York, published 2007, page 32:
(obsolete) A word or a motto; a device.
Tarquin's eye may read the mot afar. 1594, William Shakespeare, Lucrece (First Quarto), London: […] Richard Field, for Iohn Harrison, […], →OCLC:
1597–1598, Joseph Hall, Virgidemiarum
With his big title, an Italian mot
(obsolete) A note or brief strain on a bugle.
Comrades, mark these three mots — it is the call of the Knight of the Fetterlock 1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC:
Probably from Dutch mot (“a sow, a lecherous woman”). See also mort (“woman”) and moth (“girlfriend”).
Meanings
(Ireland, UK, slang) A woman; a wife.
And we shall caper a-heel-and-toeing, / A Newgate hornpipe some fine day; / With the mots, their ogles throwing, / Tol lol, &c. / And old Cotton humming his pray. 1829 July 14, Vidocq, Eugène François with Maginn, William, transl., “Noctes Ambrosiana [En roulant de vergne en vergne]”, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, number 45, translation of En roulant de vergne en vergne, page 133:
Come wed, my dear, and let's agree, / Then of the booze-ken you'll be free; / No sneer from cully, mot, or froe / Dare then reproach my Bess for Joe; / For he's the kiddy rum and queer, / That all St. Giles's boys do fear. 1789, G. Parker, “The Sandman's Wedding”, in Farmer, John Stephen, editor, Musa Pedestris, published 1896:
(Ireland, UK, slang) A prostitute.
(Ireland, UK, slang) A landlady.
After some altercation with the "mot" of the "ken" (mistress of the lodging-house) about the cleanliness of a knife or fork, my new acquaintance began to arrange "ground," &c., for the night's work. 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor, volume 1, page 217: