Masher
Pronunciation
- Rhymes: -æʃə(r)
Origin 1
Origin 2
Mash Note at World Wide Words
The City in Slang, by Irving L. Allen, p. 195
The Barnhart Concise Dictionary of Etymology, as cited at The Grammarphobia Blog: Mash notes, March 16, 2007
masher ("one who presses, softens"), or more likely from Romani
Charles Godfrey Leland in The Gypsies, p. 109, footnote 108; and preface to his poem “The Masherâ€, where he credits the etymology to Marshall Palmer, a Broadway producer.
masha ("a fascinator, an enticer"), mashdva ("fascination, enticement"). Originally used in theater,
Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang
and recorded in US in 1870s.
Either originally borrowed as masher, from masha, or from mash + -er. Leland writes of the etymology:
Preface to poem “The Masherâ€, in his Songs of the Sea and Lays of the Land, p. 243 (full text)
It was introduced by the well-known gypsy family of actors, C., among whom Romany was habitually spoken. The word “masher†or “mash†means in that tongue to allure, delude, or entice. It was doubtless much aided in its popularity by its quasi-identity with the English word. But there can be no doubt as to the gypsy origin of “mash†as used on the stage. I am indebted for this information to the late well-known impresario Marshall Palmer of New York, and I made a note of it years before the term had become at all popular.
Noun
masher
(plural mashers)- a man who makes often unwelcome advances to women
- around 1900, O. Henry, "Oh, gee!" remarked the Girl from Sieber-Mason's, glancing up with the most capable coolness. "Ain't there any way to ever get rid of you mashers? I've tried everything from eating onions to using hatpins. Be on your way, Freddie."
- a fashionable man, a dandy, a fop
- (rare) A man who molests women, as in a subway.