mosey

[prettygoodword]

mosey (MOH-zee) - v., to wander leisurely, stroll, saunter; to depart, esp. in a hurry.


This is an Americanism dateable to the 1820s, particularly associated these days with Old West dialects -- which is interesting as it's first attested in southeastern states. The two senses are not as far apart as it might seem, given how understatement gets used -- when a sheriff says, "You better mosey along," he's really suggesting that you vamoose pronto. Origin is unknown -- suggestions, given its initial region, that it's from an English dialect run aground over identifying a possible source, and that it's from Spanish vamos, we go (making it a doublet of vamoose), run aground over Spanish having very little (i.e. no other identifying instances) influence over that region.

---L.

Comments

[full_metal_ox]

If “mosey” is a derivative of “vamos”, it might have traveled northward from Florida: a state that was colonized by the Spanish diaspora before the English one—befitting its Spanish name, shares a Gulf with Mexico, and has long had a significant cattle-ranching industry.

[prettygoodword]

That's part of the conjecture by those proposing it, but as I understand it there's no evidence of either that or any other Spanish-into-English happening in the area until much more recent times.