malkin n.

fem. proper name, from French Mathilde, which is of Germanic origin, literally "mighty in battle;" compare Old High German Mahthilda, from mahti "might, power" (see might (n.)) + hildi "battle," from Proto-Germanic *hildiz "battle" (see Hilda). Matilda (1102-1167), daughter of Henry I, claimant to the throne during the Anarchy, usually is not reckoned among the kings and queens of England.

The name also was late 19c. Australian slang for "a traveler's bundle or swag," hence the expression waltzing Matilda "to travel on foot" (by 1889).

In my electorate nearly every man you meet who is not "waltzing Matilda" rides a bicycle. ["Parliamentary Debates," Australia, 1907]

The lyrics of the song of that name, sometimes called the unofficial Australian national anthem, are said to date to 1893.

name given to a cat, especially an old she-cat, 1620s, as in, or from, Shakespeare's Gray-Malkin, in "Macbeth" (1605); from gray (adj.) + Malkin, diminutive of fem. proper name Matilda or Maud.

"female pudenda," 1650s (earlier mawkine, 1530s), apparently a variant of malkin in its sense of "mop." Meaning "artificial vagina or 'counterfeit hair for a woman's privy parts' " [Grose] is attested from 1610s. According to "The Oxford Companion to the Body," the custom of wearing merkins dates from mid-15c., was associated with prostitutes, and was to disguise a want of pubic hair, either shaved off to exterminate body lice or a result of venereal disease.

This put a strange Whim in his Head; which was, to get the hairy circle of [a prostitute's] Merkin .... This he dry'd well, and comb'd out, and then return'd to the Cardinall, telling him, he had brought St. Peter's Beard. [Alexander Smith, "A Complete History of the Lives and Robberies of the most notorious Highwaymen," 1714]