Meaning of man in the moon | Babel Free

Definitions

1. An image of a man perceived in the dark maria (plains or "seas") and light highlands or other features of the Moon, originally regarded as a man with a burden on his back or accompanied by a small dog, and now more commonly as a man's face in the full moon or his profile in a crescent moon; hence, an imaginary man thought to be living on the Moon.
2. An imaginary person; also (UK politics, slang), an unidentified person who illegally pays for election expenditure and electors' expenses, as long as the latter vote as the person wishes.
   figuratively, obsolete

Equivalents

Examples

“Cal[iban]. Ha'ſt thou not dropt from heauen ? / Ste[phano]. Out o'th Moone I doe aſſure thee. I vvas the Man ith' Moone, vvhen time vvas. / Cal. I haue ſeene thee in her: and I doe adore thee: My Miſtris [Miranda] ſhevv'd me thee, and thy Dog, and thy Buſh.”

“Thy VVife is a Conſtellation of Vertues; ſhe's the Moon, and thou art the Man in the Moon: Nay, ſhe is more Illuſtrious than the Moon; for ſhe has her Chaſtity vvithout her Inconſtancy, 'S'bud I vvas but in Jeſt.”

“I knevv vvell enough at firſt, that theſe vvere mad, hare-brain'd Notions, and I thought no more of being ſerious in them, than I thought of being a Man in the Moon: […]”

“I declare, quoth my uncle, I knovv no more vvhich it is, than the man in the moon;—[…]”

“[H]ow my little bit of dinner slides itself down my throat, I know no more than a man in the moon.”

“As to all the higher questions which determine the starting-point of a diagnosis—as to the philosophy of medical evidence—any glimmering of these can only come from a scientific culture of which country practitioners have usually no more notion than the man in the moon.”

“Non eſt inventus: there's no ſuch man to be found; let them that have the commiſſion for the concealments looke after it, or the man in the moone put for it.”

“235. To whom did you say that you wanted a ticket for home?—The stranger. / 236. The Man in the Moon?—Yes. / […] / 245. And I may ask you, was it also included as one of the tickets in the amount that the Man in the Moon paid you?—[…]—Yes, it was; the last received by me.”

“There was a man named Moore, a stranger in the town, whose pedigree nobody could trace, and who was called the "Man in the Moon." He was thought to move about and dispose of money in a way which nobody could trace. He had received a sum of 500l., and out of that he had paid to Mr. Lang, innkeeper, a sum of 50l., and he did not vote at all. Next came a Thomas Stead, a shopkeeper, in Northgate, Wakefield, who had received 60l., which was paid to him by Dan Robinson, an understrapper to the "Man in the Moon." The money was thus traced to Moore, from him to Fernandes, and from him to the defendant and to Beckett's bank, where it had been placed by Mr. J[ohn] D[odgson] Charlesworth, the candidate.”

CEFR level