English

Prefix

Mc-

1. A patronymic used to form common Irish and Scottish names, similar to the English -son.
2. Used in combination with a non-name descriptive word to form mock names, typically as an insult.
   • 1950 Gerald McBoing Boing (cartoon short):

     "Nyah-nyah!" they all shouted. "Your name's not McCloy! You're Gerald McBoing Boing, the noise-making boy!'

   • 1968 Eddie Jefferson "Filthy McNasty" (lyrics for a 1961 instrumental of the same name by Horace Silver):

     His body is lean.

     His feet aren't clean.

     His mouth is real mean

     When he's on the scene,

     But all the time you hear the women really yellin' his name: Filthy McNasty.

   • 2005, Daniel J. Hill, Divinity and Maximal Greatness, Routledge, ISBN 0415312884, pg. 44:

     Alternatively, one may make the example a bit sharper by discussing a being, call him 'McStupid', that always knows who he is, but knows nothing else.

   • 2006, Brigid Lowry, Guitar Highway Rose, Macmillan, ISBN 0312342969, pg. 29:

     I bet Thomas McSmart-arse makes some dumb comment about my nose-ring.

   • 2007, Martha Kimes, Ivy Briefs: True Tales of a Neurotic Law Student, Simon and Schuster, ISBN 0743288386, pg. 173:

     And when she's not at the Law Review office, she's out with her goddamn Law Review friends. Goddamn Art McAsshole and goddamn Lisa Von- Bitchypants and the worst — the very worst — is that goddamn Charlotte Sidwell.

3. (business) McDonald's or McDonald's products, such as the McRib or McCafe
4. (derogatory) Indicating briefness, shallowness and lack of worth, by association with McDonald's.
   • 1983 Wallace Marx, "It's Not How Long You Make It," New York Magazine, Vol. 16, No. 50 (19 Dec 1983), p11

     Sesame Street is "McEducation." Like things served by the golden arches, Sesame Street has at once elevated the dregs and lowered the quality to mediocrity

   • 1995 Christopher Lloyd, Linda Morris & Vic Rauseo, "Dark Victory," Frasier, Season 2, Episode 24 (aired 23rd May 1995), spoken by Niles Crane (played by David Hyde Pierce)

     Two years of hard work wiped out by one of your 2 minute McSessions!

   • 2003 Anthony Wright, British politics: a very short introduction, Oxford University Press, p35

     Some of the techniques have been imported from the United States, but Britain's tight political and media village is now the European market leader in this kind of McPolitics.

Derived terms

• McJob

Related terms

• Mac-