malkin
/ˈmɔːlkɪn/
malkin noun: a (stereotypical name for a) lower-class or uncultured woman; a kitchenmaid; a slattern.
Noun
malkin (plural malkins)
- A (stereotypical name for a) lower-class or uncultured woman; a kitchenmaid; a slattern.
- Ȝe ne haue na more meryte · in masse ne in houres / Þan Malkyn of hire maydenhode · þat no man desireth.
You gain no more merit from mass or your prayers / Than Malkin from her maidenhood, which no man desires.c. 1385, William Langland, Piers Plowman (Bodleian MS Laud Misc. 581), I - We did but keep you surety for our son, / If this be he, — or a draggled mawkin, thou, / That tends her bristled grunters in the sludge[.]1849, Tennyson, Poems, volume 2, page 224
- Ȝe ne haue na more meryte · in masse ne in houres / Þan Malkyn of hire maydenhode · þat no man desireth.
- A mop, especially one used to clean a baker's oven.
- "She had no sooner said so, but they all vanished saving onely one Peter Grospetter, whom a little after she saw snatch'd up into the aire, and to let fall his Maulkin (a stick that they make clean Ovens withall) and her self was also driven so forcibly with the wind, that it made her almost Lose...1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book III, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 120
- A mop or sponge attached to a jointed staff for swabbing out a cannon.
- A scarecrow.
- [A] straw malkin like thee, which the very crows are not afraid to perch on[.]1866, Charles Kingsley, chapter 23, in Hereward the Wake, London: Nelson, page 321
- A cat.
- Now she was strong enough to walk and watch them circling in the sky or to sit in the arbour at the end of the long lawn and, with the sunlight smouldering in her dark-red hair and lying wanly over the area of her face and neck, watch the multiform and snow-white convolutions of her malkins.1946, Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan, London: Eyre & Spottiswoode, →OCLC
- A hare.
- There was milk punch and spiced whisky, a smell of goose and maukin roasting on the spit.1982, TC Boyle, Water Music, Penguin, published 2006, page 158
Proper noun capitalized: Malkin
Malkin (plural Malkins)
- A surname transferred from the given name.
- Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), a group that promotes conservatism on college campuses, has kicked one of its prominent speakers, Michelle Malkin, to the curb. […] YAF did exactly the right thing by disassociating itself from Malkin for coming to Fuentes’ defense.2019 November 20, Dexter Van Zile, “Right-Wing Holocaust Denial — in America”, in The Algemeiner, archived from the original on 17 Mar 2020
Forms of malkin
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | malkins |
| alternative form | maukin |
| alternative form | maulkin |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Malkins |
Origin of malkin
From Malde, an early form of Maude or Matilda + -kin (diminutive ending). Compare grimalkin.
Matronymic surname, from a diminutive form of the medieval personal name Malle, a pet form of Mary.
Questions about malkin
- What does malkin mean?
- Malkin means a (stereotypical name for a) lower-class or uncultured woman; a kitchenmaid; a slattern.
- What part of speech is malkin?
- Malkin can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce malkin?
- Malkin is pronounced /ˈmɔːlkɪn/.
- What is the plural of malkin?
- The plural of malkin is malkins.
Words near malkin in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: malkin (page history and authors); Malkin (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Cite this entry: “malkin.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/malkin. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.