DCHP-2

mauzy mausy, mausey, mawzy DCHP-2 (October 2016)

• adj. — Newfoundland, Outdoors

  damp, foggy, cloudy weather, with occasional drizzle.

  Type: 2. Preservation — Mauzy is a preservation from British English, where it is attested as far back as the 1890s (see OED-3, s.v. "mosy" for an 1892 quotation, DNE. s.v. "mauzy" for an 1897 quotations) and listed as "now chiefly Newfoundland". The term has been preserved in Canada (see Chart 1), and is almost exclusive to Newfoundland, where it has the highest prevalence (see Chart 2). By the 1930s, the term may have acquired some elements of a linguistic stereotype of Newfoundland, which is quite entrenched today (see the 2005 and 2012 quotations). By the 1930s, the term started to appear in works such as Devine (1937: 33), who defined a "mausey day" as "a cloudy, foggy day with no wind and a little rain at times."
  See also COD-2, s.v. "mauzy", which is marked "Cdn (Nfld)".