We’ve not had a good word for a while, and I do like a good word! So today I give you:

Malkin or Mawkin

1. A familiar diminutive of Matilda, Maud.
2. (Obsolete) Used as a female personal name; applied typically to a woman of the lower classes.
3. The proper name of a female spectre or demon.
4. An untidy female, especially a servant or country wench; a slut or slattern; a lewd woman. [See, inter alia, Shakespeare’s Coriolanus]
5. (Obsolete) An effeminate man.
6. (Obsolete) A mop; a bundle of rags fastened to the end of a stick especially as used to clean out a baker’s oven.
7. (Nautical) A sponge on a stick for cleaning out a piece of ordnance.
8. (Obsolete) A scarecrow; a ragged puppet or grotesque effigy.
9. The name for certain animals, especially a cat and (in Northern and Scots English) a hare.