man in the moon

A 19th-century illustration of the man in the moon (sense 1) as a man with a burden on his back, in this case a woodcutter who was found by Moses gathering sticks on the Sabbath and exiled to the Moon, based on a Germanic folktale.[n 1]

The man in the moon (sense 1) being struck in the face by a spacecraft in a frame from French film director Georges Méliès’s 1902 film Le voyage dans la lune (A Trip to the Moon).

From man + in + the + moon.[1]

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˌmæn ɪn ðə ˈmuːn/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˌmæn ən ðə ˈmun/
• Rhymes: -uːn

man in the moon

1. An image of a man perceived in the dark maria (plains or "seas") and light highlands or other features of the Moon, originally regarded as a man with a burden on his back or accompanied by a small dog, and now more commonly as a man's face in the full moon or his profile in a crescent moon; hence, an imaginary man thought to be living on the Moon.

   Synonym: moonman

   • 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], page 10:

     Cal[iban]. Ha'ſt thou not dropt from heauen ? / Ste[phano]. Out o'th Moone I doe aſſure thee. I vvas the Man ith' Moone vvhen time vvas. / Cal. I haue ſeene thee in her: and I doe adore thee: My Miſtris [Miranda] ſhevv'd me thee, and thy Dog, and thy Buſh.

   • 1695, [William] Congreve, Love for Love: A Comedy. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 24:

     Thy VVife is a Conſtellation of Vertues; ſhe's the Moon, and thou art the Man in the Moon: Nay, ſhe is more Illuſtrious than the Moon; for ſhe has her Chaſtity vvithout her Inconſtancy, 'S'bud I vvas but in Jeſt.

   • 1723, [Daniel Defoe], The History and Remarkable Life of the Truly Honourable Col. Jacque, Commonly Call’d Col. Jack, […], 2nd edition, London: […] J. Brotherton, […], →OCLC, page 314:

     I knevv vvell enough at firſt, that theſe vvere mad, hare-brain'd Notions, and I thought no more of being ſerious in them, than I thought of being a Man in the Moon: […]

     No more than the man in the moon is an expression meaning “nothing at all”: see also the 1759, 1859, and 1871 quotations.

   • 1759, [Laurence Sterne], chapter VII, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, 2nd (1st London) edition, volume II, London: […] R[obert] and J[ames] Dodsley […], published 1760, →OCLC, pages 52–53:

     I declare, quoth my uncle, I knovv no more vvhich it is, than the man in the moon; […]

   • 1859 November 26 – 1860 August 25, [William] Wilkie Collins, “The Narrative of Walter Hartright, of Clement’s Inn, London”, in The Woman in White. […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, […], published 1860, →OCLC, part I, section II, page 8, column 2:

     [H]ow my little bit of dinner slides itself down my throat, I know no more than a man in the moon.

   • 1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter XIII, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, →OCLC, book II, page 220:

     As to all the higher questions which determine the starting-ooint of a diagnosis—as to the philosophy of medical evidence—any glimmering of these can only come from a scientific culture of which country practitioners have usually no more notion than the man in the moon.

2. (obsolete, figurative) An imaginary person; also (UK politics, slang), an unidentified person who illegally pays for election expenditure and electors' expenses, as long as the latter vote as the person wishes.
   • 1596, Tho[mas] Nashe, “Dialogus”, in Haue with You to Saffron-Walden. Or, Gabriell Harveys Hunt is Up. […], London: […] John Danter, →OCLC; republished as J[ohn] P[ayne] C[ollier], editor, Have with You to Saffron-Walden (Miscellaneous Tracts; Temp. Eliz. and Jac. I), [London: s.n., 1870], →OCLC, page 131:

     Non eſt inventus: there's no ſuch man to be found; let them that have the commiſſion for the concealments looke after it, or the man in the moone put for it.

   • 1851 March 29, Edwin James, counsel for the petitioners, William Locke, witness, “Minutes of Evidence Taken before the Select Committee on the Aylesbury Election Petition”, in Reports from Committees: […], volume 6, [London: Her Majesty’s Stationery Office], →OCLC, page 17:

     235. To whom did you say that you wanted a ticket for home?—The stranger. / 236. The Man in the Moon?—Yes. / […] / 245. And I may ask you, was it also included as one of the tickets in the amount that the Man in the Moon paid you?— […] Yes, it was; the last received by me.

   • 1862, T[homas] Campbell Foster, W[illiam] F[rancis] Finlason, reporters, “Regina v. John Barff Charlesworth”, in Reports of Cases Decided at Nisi Prius and at the Crown Side on Circuit; with Select Decisions at Chambers, volume II (Hilary Vacation, 1860, to Hilary Vacation, 1862), London: V. & R. Stevens, Sons, & Haynes; Sweet; and Maxwell;  […]; Dublin: Hodges, Smith & Co., […], →OCLC, page 330:

     There was a man named Moore, a stranger in the town, whose pedigree nobody could trace, and who was called the "Man in the Moon." He was thought to move about and dispose of money in a way which nobody could trace. He had received a sum of 500l., and out of that he had paid to Mr. Lang, inkeeper, a sum of 50l., and he did not vote at all. Next came a Thomas Stead, a shopkeeper, in Northgate, Wakefield, who had received 60l., which was paid to him by Dan Robinson, an understrapper to the "Man in the Moon." The money was thus traced to Moore, from him to Fernandes, and from him to the defendant and to Beckett's bank, where it had been placed by Mr. J[ohn] D[odgson] Charlesworth, the candidate.

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