mullock

mullock noun: rubbish, waste matter.

Noun

mullock (usually uncountable, plural mullocks)

(UK, dialectal, usually) Rubbish, waste matter.
(Australia, New Zealand, usually) Overburden: waste material generated while searching for minerals or while mining, such as when sinking a shaft.
(Australia, New Zealand, usually) Tailings: waste rock from which the wanted gold, minerals, opal, etc., has been extracted.
- The gold, both in the quartz and mullock, is very fine, and, owing to the soft and ferruginous nature of the stuff, specks can but very rarely be seen during working.1875, New Zealand House of Representatives, Appendix to the Journals of the House of Representatives of New Zealand, Volume 2, page 30
- He stopped and took up a handful of mullock. The stones clattered on the coffin; the mud remained in his hand.1938, Xavier Herbert, chapter X, in Capricornia, page 167
(usually) Nonsense, rubbish.
(UK, Yorkshire, dialectal, usually) A mess; the result of a blunder.
- For when they saw awr Mary, / They made a mullock on it, / For they thowt 'at all them flaars / Had been put on Mary's bonnet.1911, John Hartley, Yorkshire Lyrics: Poems written in the dialect as spoken in the west riding of Yorkshire, page 242
- This attitude she never varied; but the face that was ordinarily so expressionless worked at times with strange emotions as she unfolded her story, and once or twice her voice needed clearing.
  "I made a mullock of it, you see," she explained.1924, Willie Riley, The Garden of Delight, page 122

mullock (third-person singular simple present mullocks, present participle mullocking, simple past and past participle mullocked)

கழிவுப்பாறை, வீண்பாறை

Noun
plural	mullocks
Verb
third-person singular present	mullocks
present participle	mullocking
past participle	mullocked
past	mullocked

From mull + -ock.

What does mullock mean?: Mullock means rubbish, waste matter.
What is mullock in Tamil?: Mullock in Tamil is கழிவுப்பாறை, வீண்பாறை. See Mullock meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is mullock?: Mullock can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of mullock?: The plural of mullock is mullocks.

Adapted from Wiktionary: mullock (page history and authors); mullock (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-mullock.ogg.

Cite this entry: “mullock.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mullock. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.