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 1820. London Mag., i., 25. He was always togged out to the nines.

1821. Galt, Ayrshire Legatees, viii. He's such a funny man, and touches off the Londoners to the nines.

1822. Wilson, Noctes Ambrosianæ, i., 315. That young chiel Gibb hits off a simple scene o' nature to the nines.

1856. Reade, Never too Late, lxv. Bran-new, polished to the nine.

1879. Howells, Lady of the Aroostook, xxvii. I'd know as I see anything wrong in his kind of dressin' up to the nines, as you may say. As long's he's got the money, I don't see what harm it is.

1891. Gould, Double Event, 31. You do things up to the nines here.

Nine-shillings, subs. phr. (rhyming).—Nonchalance.

Nine-spot. Only a nine-spot, phr. (American).—Indifferent; of small account. [The nine at cards rarely counts for a trick].

Nine-tail bruiser (or mouser), subs. phr. (prison).—The cat-o'-nine-tails.

Nineways. To look nine ways (or nine ways for Sundays), verb. phr. (common).—To squint.

1542. Udall, Apopth. of Erasmus, 203 (Note). Squyntyied he was and looked nyne wayes.

Nine winks, subs. phr. (old).—A short nap: cf. forty-winks.—Bee (1823).

Ningle. See Ingle.

Ning-nang, subs. (veterinary).—A worthless thoroughbred.

Ninny, subs. (old).—1. A fool: see Buffle and Cabbage-head. Also ninny-hammer, and hence ninny-hammering = foolishness.—B. E. (c. 1696); New Cant. Dict. (1725); Grose (1785).

1593. Nashe, Strange Newes, in Works, ii., 253. Whoreson ninihammer, that wilt assault a man and have no stronger weapons.

1598. Florio, Worlde of Wordes, Fagnone an idle loytring gull, a ninnie.

1606. Marston, The Fawne, ii., 1. A foole? A coxecombe? A ninny-hammer?

1604. Yorkshire Trag., i., 2. Why the more fool she; Ay, the more ninny-*hammer she.

1609. Shakspeare, Tempest, iii., 2. What a pied ninny's this.

1609. Field, Woman is a Weathercock [Dodsley, Old Plays (1874), xi., 24]. My father is a ninny; and my mother was a hammer.

1698-1700. London Spy, vii. (1706), i., 154. You cuckoldy company of Whissling, Pedling, Lying, Over-reaching Ninny-hammers.

1712. Arbuthnot, History of John Bull, 1., xii. Have you no more manners than to rail at my husband, that has saved that clod-pated, numskulled, ninny-*hammer of yours from ruin?

1719. Durfey, Pills to Purge, ii., 2. A Senator some say He made his dapple grey For his Italian Neigh A crack-brain'd ninny.

1725. New Cant. Dict., s.v.

1753. Adventurer, No. 25. The words ninny-hammer, noodle, and numscull, are frequently bandied to and fro betwixt them.

1763. Foote, Mayor of Garratt, ii., 2. This whey-faced ninny, who is but the ninth part of a man.

1811. Jane Austin, Sense and Sensibility, xl. The Colonel is a ninny, my dear; because he has two thousand a-year himself, he thinks that nobody else can marry on less.

1838. Comic Almanack [Hotten], p. 159. We're not such ninnies as to stand in all this riot.

1847. Lytton, Lucretia, ii., ii. If she's a good girl, and loves you, she'll not let you spend your money on her. I haint such a ninny as that, said Beck, with majestic contempt.