"on one's muscle"

[Jonathan Lighter]

HDAS has this from Matsell's 1859 crime glossary, but this ex., from an editorial in an Indiana newspaper, shows the term was well known and not then restricted to lawbreakers:

  1861 in Alan D. Gaff On Many a Bloody Field (Bloomington: Indiana U. P., 1996) 8:
  [The war will continue] long enough to give all who are "spilin' for a fight," an opportunity to "go in on their muscle."

  HDAS defines it as "belligerently," to which one might add "eager for a brawl."

  JL


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