mudballn.

1836 R. M. Bird Sheppard Lee II. v. vii. 91 Not content to plaster and bespatter me with mudballs from head to foot, they fell upon me, and, being very numerous, did actually roll me about in a gutter.

1857 G. F. Train Amer. Merchant 115 An occasional beggar got up in the best possible style with..person exposed and mud balls stuck on his forehead.

1943 Amer. Midland Naturalist 30 102 Beds of coarse sediment that contain mudballs, cross-bedded oolites and edgewise breccias.

1974 D. Stuart Prince of my Country v. 35 It's a tiny old mudball swingin' along through a tremendous old sky and' none of us lasts long, y' know.

1996 R. Mabey Flora Britannica 326/2 The intention was to hurl the mud-ball as high and as far as possible, and perhaps get it to stick on a distant window.

1846 B. R. Hall Something for Every Body xxxii. 120 Who then is to blame, the black coats that have deserted us?—or our rampant speechifiers, who often seem glad to have a target for their mud-balls?

1848 J. R. Lowell Fable for Critics (ed. 2) 57 Messieurs Mathews and Poe, You mustn't fling mud-balls at Longfellow so.

1901 W. V. Moody Poems 51 Who hath flung yon mud-ball there Where my world went green and fair?

1966 C. Bukowski Let. Oct. in Screams from Balcony (1998) 270 I am not being straight-laced but why give them a chance for their dirty mudballs?

1988 L. Martz & G. Carroll Ministry of Greed xi. 205 We know if we say something, there'll be a bigger mudball thrown back at us.