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My mother used the saying lucks a mussy ?correct spelling and I have always wondered about it origins and meaning. I think it means Lord have mercy but am not sure on this.

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    "Lawks a mercy". Which in turn seems to be a corrupted version of "Lord have mercy" (presumably deliberately corrupted to avoid taking the name of the Lord in vain).
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 18:50
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    Where did you mother grow up and/or live? My guess would be lord-a-mercy or as you guessed Lord-have-mercy or Lord-ha-mercy were mercy is pronounced something like muh-cee.
    – mkennedy
    Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 18:51

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It looks like your hunch is correct.

Lord Jesus, Have Mercy on Me

Posted on 08 04 2011

Lord Jesus, Have Mercy on Me In the Caribbean, whenever life takes a turn for the worse, people exclaim, “Lord have mercy.” In colloquial terms, the expression is, “Lord, ha mussy” or for the very illiterate, it is “Lucks an mussy.” Because the phase is so commonly used, it may lose its impact with some people, but the statement, “Lord, have mercy” is a biblical expression. “Have mercy” occurs 46 times in Scripture, 12 of those times are in the Psalms where psalmists often implored God for relief and help. Several times during the earthly ministry of…

Source: Faye's Blog. This seems to be the only direct google response to your spelling.

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    But the spelling is so corrupted that Google doesn't recognize that it's really "lawks a mercy". You can't expect that large a spelling error to be corrected.
    – Peter Shor
    Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 18:55
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    @PeterShor I certainly don't expect google to be that smart, I simply googled 'lucks a mussy' and that's what came up, so at least one other person is using that spelling. Except that this question came up top of the search!
    – Mynamite
    Commented Oct 23, 2014 at 19:00
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http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/61/messages/888.html

I found this reference to Victorian writers using the phrase 'Lawks-a-mussy'

Easy to see how this can vary.
I cannot find a first usage example however.

HTH

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There's really no such thing as a "correct spelling" for this, because:

The expression is an utterrance.

One is expected (yes) to pronounce it any which way but the original (written) version.

The original expression includes some form of the Lord's name.

In daily speech, one is not to take the Lord's name in vain.

"Lord, have mercy!" in writing -- should be (so, is) pronounced variously, which otherwise may or may not make sense.

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