1617 J. Taylor Three Weekes Observ. in Wks. (1630) iii. 94/2 A thousand hogsheads then would haunt his firkin, And Mistris Minks recouer her lost mirkin.

1658 J. Eliot Poems 60 Those orient teeth, and that her Flaxen hair, One of her legs, a Merkin too it's said Each night commited are unto her Maid.

1660 Mercurius Fumigosus No. 7. 56 The last week was lost a Merkin in the Coven-Garden.

1714 A. Smith Hist. Lives High-way Men (ed. 2) II. 151 This put a strange Whim in his Head; which was, to get the hairy circle of her 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.

1796 Grose's Classical Dict. Vulgar Tongue (ed. 3) Merkin, counterfeit hair for women's privy parts.

1819 Earl of Clare MS Let. (Univ. of Keele Libr.: Arch. Accession code SC6) Some females have not ‘Esau's beauty where it should be’, and to please their lovers wear false hair on those parts, & instead of a wig it is called a Murkin.

1886 R. F. Burton Terminal Ess. in tr. Arabian Nights' Entertainm. X. 239 For the use of men they have the ‘merkin’, a heart-shaped article of thin skin stuffed with cotton and slit with an artificial vagina.

1916 C. Porter Compl. Lyrics (1983) 37/1 Though she were disguised in twice as many Wigs Chignons Toupées Transformations Or Early English merkins, My eagle eye would have no difficulty in detecting her as being none other than Sarah Perkins.

1962 E. Wilson Night Thoughts 203 Said Philip Sydney, buttoning his jerkin ‘Allow me, darling: you have dropped your merkin.’

1973 T. Pynchon Gravity's Rainbow (1981) i. 95 He wears a false cunt and merkin of sable both handcrafted in Berlin by the notorious Mme. Ophir, the mock labia and bright purple clitoris molded of..synthetic rubber.

1995 Guardian 1 Nov. ii. 13/5 David Baddiel omitted to explain the function of pubic wigs, or merkins as they were known, in Charles II's debauched era.

2003 Guardian 26 June (G2 section) 6/2 The latest in a long history of merkin-wearers.

1656 R. Fletcher tr. Martial Epigrams x. xc, in Ex Otio Negotium 95 Why dost thou reach thy Merkin now half dust? Why dost provoke the ashes of thy lust?

1671 S. Skinner & T. Henshaw Etymologicon Linguæ Anglicanæ Merkin, Pubes mulieris.

a1687 C. Cotton Poems (1689) 189 By these the true colour one can no more know, Than by Mouse-skins above stairs the Merkin below.

c1750 in H. Shields Old Dublin Songs (1988) 19 Now as the warm water was working The sea crab did struggle the more And caught her fast hold by her merking.

1874 Hotten's Slang Dict. (rev. ed.) 224 Merkin, a term usually applied to a woman's privities. Originally false hair for those parts.

1802 C. James New Mil. Dict. Merkin, a mop to clean cannon.

1926 E. Pound Let. 5 Mar. in Pound/Williams (1996) ii. 76 The English stock is fortunately anti-intellectual, and mistrusts ideas, so it has never been thoroughly corrupted, like the underfed..thinner murkn blood.

1961 M. Miller Gay & Melancholy Sound 563 We must put our shoulders to the wheel and as 'mercuns back Our Great Leader.]

1990 Re: Interesting Idioms in rec.sport.soccer (Usenet newsgroup) 1 Feb. Well, not always. Andy Roxburgh is Scotlands coach, we have no manager the noo. What's 'merkin for ‘booked’, or alternatively, ‘Right, son—walk!’

1992 Re: RFD: sci.cryonics in news.groups (Usenet newsgroup) 27 May To me, cryonics means fridges etc (sorry ‘refrigerators’ to you 'merkins).

1993 Star Tribune (Minneapolis) 26 Sept. 24 a Computer software [in Portugal] is in ‘Merkin’ (American English), and so are a lot of the courses at the Institute of Technology at the University of Lisboa.

1994 Morning Call (Allentown, Pa.) 21 Aug. b3 Black related an anecdote about touring the South back in the 1960s when his group [sc. Jay and the Americans] was referred to as ‘Jay and the Merkins’.

1994 W. Safire in N.Y. Times Mag. 11 Sept. 45/1 Americans have seized on this Britishism, which has become the most important contribution of the mother country to the lingo we call Merkin since not to worry and spot on.

1999 Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, Florida) (Nexis) 14 May 15 L.A. is only marginally American. It's a modern-day Babel, where it's the ‘real merkins’ who must feel linguistically and culturally alienated.