Mull, Fabric
MULL, FABRIC, (i) A soft plain muslin exported largely from England to India, etc., and used also in some qualities for summer dresses in the home trade. The name is an abbreviation of the Hindu mulmul. (2) A word, derived from the same root as seen in " meal " and " mill," meaning that which is ground or reduced in other ways to powder or small particles. Thus a snuff-box is in Scotland called a " mull," from the early machines in which the tobacco was ground. Large snuff-mulls, which remained stationary on a table, as opposed to the small portable boxes, often took the form of a ram's head ornamented in silver. Possibly from the ground or grated spices with which ale or wine is flavoured when heated, comes the expression " mulled," as applied to such a beverage. The colloquial expression " to make a mull," i.e. to muddle or make a failure of something, also perhaps connected with " to mull," to reduce to powder. (3) The Scots word " mull," meaning a promontory or headland, as the Mull of Galloway, the Mull of Kintyre, represents the Gaelic maol, cf. Icelandic muli in the same sense; this may be the same as mull, snout, cf. Ger. Maid.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
