Crossword clues for hugger-mugger
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Hugger-mugger \Hug"ger-mug`ger\, a.
Secret; clandestine; sly.
Confused; disorderly; slovenly; mean; as, hugger-mugger doings.
Hugger-mugger \Hug"ger-mug`ger\, n. [Scot. huggrie-muggrie; Prov. E. hugger to lie in ambush, mug mist, muggard sullen.]
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Privacy; secrecy. Commonly in the phrase in hugger-mugger, with haste and secrecy. [Archaic]
Many things have been done in hugger-mugger.
--Fuller. Confusion; disorder.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
also huggermugger, "secretly," 1520s, one of a number of similar-sounding reduplicated words in use around this time and meaning much the same thing, including hucker-mucker, which may be the original of the bunch if the root is, as some think, Middle English mukre "to hoard up, conceal." Also compare Middle English hukmuck, late 15c., name of some sort of device for cleansing.
Wiktionary
a. 1 secret, clandestine, sly. 2 disorderly, chaotic, confused. adv. 1 secretly. 2 confusedly, in a muddle. n. 1 (context archaic English) secrecy. 2 disorder.
WordNet
adj. in utter disorder; "a disorderly pile of clothes" [syn: disorderly, higgledy-piggledy, jumbled, topsy-turvy]
conducted with or marked by hidden aims or methods; "clandestine intelligence operations"; "cloak-and-dagger activities behind enemy lines"; "hole-and-corner intrigue"; "secret missions"; "a secret agent"; "secret sales of arms"; "surreptitious mobilization of troops"; "an undercover investigation"; "underground resistance" [syn: clandestine, cloak-and-dagger, hole-and-corner(a), hush-hush, on the quiet(p), secret, surreptitious, undercover, underground]
n. a state of confusion; ritual accompanied by complicated and purposeless activity that obscures and confuses; "he engaged in the hugger-mugger of international finance" [syn: mumbo jumbo]
adv. in secrecy; "they did it all hugger-mugger"
Usage examples of "hugger-mugger".
She had no relatives in London, and when she examined Adam's papers, after he had been buried with all due solemnity, not thrown hugger-mugger into a pit as the plague victims were, she was astonished to find from them that his true name was Arthur Archer, and also the name of the village in Leicestershire which he had left to come to London.
As Willem and Bethia and, after their return, Nan, a nursemaid for Adam, lived in Celia's house, so each house in London was filled not only with the family who owned it but servants, journeymen and apprentices--all crowded hugger-mugger in a city which had grown and was still growing.
The Observer showed our cards to Campbell and immediately, the government’s guardians talked away what we had on tape, flat-out denied what we had from notes and witnesses, even though S w’edlund—he was with me at the meetings with Draper, in the hugger-mugger with Liddle—gave us a sworn affidavit under penalty of perjury.
It instinctively rejects, on the contrary, whatever shall call up the image of our race upon its lowest terms, as the partner of beasts, beastly itself, dwelling pell-mell and hugger-mugger, hairy man with hairy woman, in the caves of old.