English

Alternative forms

Noun

mundungus ‎(uncountable)

1. (obsolete) Offal; waste animal product; organic matter unfit for consumption.
   • 1767, November 5, George Faulkner, a letter to William Bowyer:

     Claret is the universal medicine here, and mundungus port the bane and stupefaction of all society.

2. (archaic) Poor-quality tobacco with a foul, rancid, or putrid smell.
   • 1728, July 28, Jonathan Swift, My Lady's Lamentation and Complaint Against the Dean:

     Whom he brings in among us
     And bribes with mundungus;

   • 1755, Henry Fielding, The Journal of a Voyage to Lisbon, pages 130–131:

     The whole town of Ryde could not supply a single leaf [of tea]; for as to what Mrs. Francis and the shop called by that name, it was not of Chinese growth. It did not indeed in the least resemble tea, either in smell or taste, or in any particular, unless in being a leaf: for it was in truth no other than a tobacco of the mundungus species.

   • 1801, May, William Cobbett, Porcupine's Works; Containing Various Writings and Selections, Exhibiting a Faithful Picture of the United States of America; etc., volume 2, A Bone to Gnaw for the Democrats, Part I, page 50:

     Nobody can doubt, particularly if country be taken into the consideration, that the grinders and retailers of Mundungus were among the author's encouragers. … that he had told the Secretary of the Treasury, that if the Mundungus was taxed, “he would be damn'd if ever he forgave him, while he had an existance.”

References

• Grose, Francis, The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue / Lexicon Balatronicum: A Dictionary of Buckish Slang, University Wit, and Pickpocket Eloquence: altered and enlarged (London; 1811)
    Mundungus. Bad or rank tobacco : from mondongo, a Spanish word signifying tripes, or the uncleaned entrails of a beast, full of filth.
• “†munˈdungus” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [2^nd Ed.; 1989]
• “mundungus, n.” listed in the Oxford English Dictionary [draft revision; Mar. 2010]