{"id":19342,"date":"2026-03-04T16:42:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:42:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/?p=19342"},"modified":"2026-03-04T16:42:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:42:10","slug":"moloker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/moloker\/","title":{"rendered":"Moloker."},"content":{"rendered":"

Xer\u00eeb sent me a wonderful word, saying accurately that “It has Hattic interest in two ways.” The OED (entry revised 2002) says s.v. moloker<\/a> n.:<\/p>\n

slang<\/em>. Now rare<\/em>. Perhaps Obsolete<\/em>.
\n A cheap hat, spec<\/em>. a renovated silk hat.<\/p>\n

1890<\/strong> Molocher<\/em>, a cheap hat.
\nA. Barr\u00e8re & C. G. Leland, Dictionary of Slang<\/em> vol. II. 60\/1<\/p>\n

1893<\/strong> A good Molocker (Molocker, it appears, is the trade term for renovated old chapeaux<\/em>).
\nWestminster Gazette<\/em> 18 July 3\/3
\n[…]<\/p>\n

1906<\/strong> The man who takes your [old silk] hat away from your door sells it to a wholesale dealer in old hats, who promptly converts it into a \u2018myloker\u2019, or a hat for the second-hand market.
\nTit-Bits<\/em> 21 April 120\/1<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There’s also a verb, ‘To renovate (a silk hat),’ qualified as Obsolete. rare<\/em>, with a single citation:<\/p>\n

1863<\/strong> ‘Tis like an old hat that has been \u2018molokered\u2019, or ironed and greased into a simulacrum of its pristine freshness.
\nG. A. Sala, Breakfast in Bed<\/em> v. 105<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The etymology is “< Yiddish melokhe<\/em> handicraft, craft, trade < Hebrew m\u0115l\u0101’\u1e35\u0101h<\/em> work, occupation.” Xer\u00eeb kindly provided some additional links, including the Jewish English Lexicon entry<\/a> for melacha<\/em> ‘Work or actions forbidden on Shabbat or Yom Tov; often refers to creative work or the use of electronics; Work in general,’ with a set of Example Sentences (“I couldn’t start fixing the chair, because that would be melacha”), the Green\u2019s Dictionary of Slang entry<\/a>, and the Internet Archive copy<\/a> of Sala’s Breakfast in Bed<\/em> highlighting the last citation, whose full context is worth quoting here:
\n<\/p>\n

The worst of the matter is, that with all your mending, restoring, and preserving labours, things wont<\/em> keep as they are, and obstinately refuse to return to that which they used to be. ‘Tis like an old hat that has been “molokered,” or ironed and greased into a simulacrum of its pristine freshness; or an old coat that has been black-and-blue revivered. For a day or two all is well, and the daw may strut about in his peacock’s feathers, the envy of the entire farmyard ; but the first shower of rain washes off the fictitious gloss, and scrubs the whitening off the sepulchre, and exposes all the senility and shabbiness of the sham. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Note that “wont<\/em>” has no apostrophe; I haven’t taken the trouble to figure out if this is a consistent style in the text or just a run-of-the-mill typo. (Thanks, Xer\u00eeb!)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Xer\u00eeb sent me a wonderful word, saying accurately that “It has Hattic interest in two ways.” The OED (entry revised 2002) says s.v. moloker n.: slang. Now rare. Perhaps Obsolete. A cheap hat, spec. a renovated silk hat. 1890 Molocher, a cheap hat. A. Barr\u00e8re & C. G. Leland, Dictionary of Slang vol. II. 60\/1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19342"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19345,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19342\/revisions\/19345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/languagehat.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}