mammock

noun

1. (dialectal, obsolete)A shapeless piece; a fragment.

   “"Can. Let me be torn into mammocks with wild Bears if I make not a gallemaufry of thy heart"”

   “The bird liveth by the scraps, and feedeth upon the leavings of that monster, who gently receiveth him into his mouth, and suffers him to pecke his jawes and teeth for such mamockes [translating morceaux] of flesh as sticke betweene them[…].”

   “"Then, by St. Thomas of Canterbury," replied Gurth, "we will have the castle, should we tear it down with our hands!" / "We have nothing else to tear it with," replied Wamba; "but mine are scarce fit to make mammocks of freestone and mortar."”

verb

1. (dialectal, obsolete, transitive)To tear to pieces.

   “I saw him run after a gilded Butterfly, & when he caught it, he let it go againe, and after it againe, and ouer and ouer he comes, and vp againe: catcht it again: or whether his fall enrag'd him, or how 'twas, hee did so set his teeth, and teare it. Oh, I warrant how he mammockt it.”

   “to keep off the profane touch of the Laicks, whilst the obscene, and surfeted Priest scruples not to paw, and mammock the sacramentall bread, as familiarly as his Tavern Bisket”

   “Yet, in the meaning of presumptuous, "bold" could reveal the poet's ambivalence, since in their impudence the navvies took liberties with nature by mammocking it. Another reservation could be the implied contrast with Harry […]”

   “However, his own son has been pulling wings off butterflies, torturing them, mammocking them in his teeth, letting them go, capturing them again, mammocking them, and so on.”

   “I smiled at her and she smiled back, her mouth sticky with strawberry jam from a piece of toast she was mammocking.”