Date
Meaning & History
Medieval diminutive of Mary (via its diminutive Malle) or Matilda (via its medieval English form Mald or Malde; also see Maud). It became a term for a lower working-class woman, as in the following lines from Act II, Scene I of Shakespeare's play Coriolanus (written between 1605 and 1608): 'The kitchen malkin pins / Her richest lockram 'bout her reechy neck, / Clamb'ring the walls to eye him.' Shakespeare also used the name Gray-Malkin for a familiar of one of the three witches, presumably an old she-cat, in his play Macbeth (1605).