Mur·phy

(mûr′fē)

n. pl. Mur·phies Slang

1. A Murphy game.

2. or murphy A potato.

[From Murphy, a common Irish name.]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

murphy

(ˈmɜːfɪ)

n, pl -phies

(Plants) a dialect or informal word for potato

[C19: from the common Irish surname Murphy]

Murphy

(ˈmɜːfɪ)

1. (Biography) Alex. born 1939, English rugby league player and coach; scored 16 tries in 27 test matches for Great Britain (1958–71)

2. (Biography) Eddie, full name Edward Regan Murphy. born 1951, US film actor and comedian. His films include 48 Hours (1982), Beverly Hills Cop (1984), Coming to America (1988), Dr Dolittle (1998), and, as a voice artist, the Shrek series of animated films (2001–10)

3. (Biography) William Parry. 1892–1987, US physician: with G. R. Minot, he discovered the liver treatment for anaemia and they shared, with G. H. Whipple, the Nobel prize for physiology or medicine in 1934

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

murphy - an edible tuber native to South America; a staple food of Ireland

Irish potato, potato, spud, tater, white potato

starches - foodstuff rich in natural starch (especially potatoes, rice, bread)

solanaceous vegetable - any of several fruits of plants of the family Solanaceae; especially of the genera Solanum, Capsicum, and Lycopersicon

root vegetable - any of various fleshy edible underground roots or tubers

baked potato - potato that has been cooked by baking it in an oven

chips, french fries, french-fried potatoes, fries - strips of potato fried in deep fat

home fries, home-fried potatoes - sliced pieces of potato fried in a pan until brown and crisp

jacket - the outer skin of a potato

mashed potato - potato that has been peeled and boiled and then mashed

Uruguay potato - similar to the common potato

Solanum tuberosum, white potato, white potato vine, potato - annual native to South America having underground stolons bearing edible starchy tubers; widely cultivated as a garden vegetable; vines are poisonous

Translations

Murphy

[ˈmɜːfɪ] N Murphy's law → ley f de la indefectible mala voluntad de los objetos inanimados

Collins Spanish Dictionary - Complete and Unabridged 8th Edition 2005 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1971, 1988 © HarperCollins Publishers 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

Murphy. By reference to the almanac a large amount of territory will be discovered upon which its rays also fell.

They were not to be had in the Pension Murphy; but their equivalent was at hand.

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Major Murphy, to whom I owe most of my facts, assures me that he has never heard of any misunderstanding between the pair.

Another fact, which had struck Major Murphy and three out of five of the other officers with whom I conversed, was the singular sort of depression which came upon him at times.

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Here is Bill Jukes, every inch of him tattooed, the same Bill Jukes who got six dozen on the WALRUS from Flint before he would drop the bag of moidores [Portuguese gold pieces]; and Cookson, said to be Black Murphy's brother (but this was never proved), and Gentleman Starkey, once an usher in a public school and still dainty in his ways of killing; and Skylights (Morgan's Skylights); and the Irish bo'sun Smee, an oddly genial man who stabbed, so to speak, without offence, and was the only Non-conformist in Hook's crew; and Noodler, whose hands were fixed on backwards; and Robt.

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"Come out in deh hall, Mary Murphy, damn yeh, if yehs want a row.

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Billy Murphy, and Joe Lloyd, and all the survivors of the old guard, got around me and their arms around me.

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Little Maggie Murphy fainted dead away, and Beatrice Peralta fell an' scratched her face horrible.

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A man of the name of Murphy had given him the address in Chicago.

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'Coming in late from this singular talk with old Bob Murphy in his smoky, book-lined room, where the two men had each unloosened his soul to the other, with the sound of the traffic humming in his ears, and the foggy London sky slung tragically across his mind .

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He would undertake to prove before a committee of the House of Commons, that there existed a combination to keep up the price of muffins, and to give the bellmen a monopoly; he would prove it by bellmen at the bar of that House; and he would also prove, that these men corresponded with each other by secret words and signs as 'Snooks,' 'Walker,' 'Ferguson,' 'Is Murphy right?' and many others.

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Harmon called a timekeeper and said, "Take this man to Pat Murphy and tell him to find room for him somehow."

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