Brewer's: Mike

To loiter. A corruption of miche (to skulk); whence, micher (a thief), and michery (theft). (Old Norse, mak, leisure; Swedish, maka; Saxon, 'mugan, to creep.) (See Michon.)

“Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher [loiterer]?”—Shakespeare: 1 Henry IV., ii. 4.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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