ben mort

noun

ben mort

noun
1

UK, Obsolete Good woman.

  • Towre out ben morts & towre, / Looke out ben morts & towre, / For all the Rome coues^([sic]) are budgd a beake, / And the quire coves tippe the lowre.1610, Samuel Rowlands, “Towre Out Ben Morts”, in Farmer, John Stephen, editor, Musa Pedestris, published 1896, page 5:
  • Ben mort, shall you and I heave a bough, mill a ken, or nip a bung, and then we'll couch a hogshead under the ruffmans, and there you shall wap with me, and I'll niggle with you.1611, Thomas Middleton, “The Roaring Girl”, in Arthur Henry Bullen, editor, The Works of Thomas Middleton, volume 4, published 1885, act 5, scene 1, pages 128–129:
Related terms
ben cove, ben cull

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.