Hugger - mugger.
The primary meaning is clandestinely. The secondary meaning is disorderly, in a slovenly manner. To hugger is to lie in ambush, from the Danish hug, huger, huggring, to squart on the ground; mugger is the Danish smug, clandestinely, whence our word smuggle.
The king in Hamlet says of Poloʹnius: “We have done but greenly in hugger-mugger to inter him”—i.e. to smuggle him into the grave clandestinely and without ceremony.
Sir T. North, in his Plutarch, says: “Antonius thought that his body should be honourably buried, and not in hugger-mugger” (clandestinely).
Ralph says:—
