different between mumps vs mump

English

Etymology

Circa 1600, from mump (“grimace”, noun), compare mump (verb), most likely referring to the painful difficulty in swallowing.

Noun

mumps pl (plural only)

1. (pathology) A contagious disease caused by the Mumps virus of the genus Rubulavirus, mostly occurring in childhood, which causes swelling of glands in the face and neck.
2. (dated) A gloomy or sullen silence.

Usage notes

• Usually used with a singular verb.

Hypernyms

• parotitis

Translations

Verb

mumps

1. Third-person singular simple present indicative form of mump

Noun

mumps

1. plural of mump

References

Douglas Harper (2001–2021) , “mumps”, in Online Etymology Dictionary

Anagrams

• PMMUs

English

Etymology 1

Perhaps borrowed through obsolete Dutch mompen (“to cheat, swindle, deceive”), according to Kroonen, a derivative of Proto-Germanic *mump- (“to stain”), from Proto-Indo-European *mmb?-neh?-, related to Ancient Greek ???????? (mémphomai, “I blame, accuse”).

Also akin to German mimpfeln (“to mumble”), Icelandic mumpa (“to take into the mouth”). See also English mum.

Verb

mump (third-person singular simple present mumps, present participle mumping, simple past and past participle mumped)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To mumble, speak unclearly.
   • 1773, Oliver Goldsmith, "Epilogue Spoklen by Mrs. Bulkley and Miss Catley [intended for She Stoops to Conquer]":

     Who mump their passion, and who, grimly smiling,

     Still thus address the fair with voice beguiling […]

2. To move the lips with the mouth closed; to mumble, as in sulkiness.
   • 1630, John Taylor, "The Necessitie of Hanging":

     He mumps, and lowres, and hangs the lip […]

3. (intransitive) To beg, especially if using a repeated phrase.
4. To deprive of (something) by cheating; to impose upon.
5. To cheat; to deceive; to play the beggar.
   • 1774, Edmund Burke, "Speech on American Taxation, April 19, 1774":

     Your ministerial directors blustered like tragic tyrants here; and then went mumping with a sore leg in America, canting, and whining, and complaining of faction, which represented them as friends to a revenue from the colonies.

6. To be sullen or sulky.
   • 1902, William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lecture 2:

     The Christian also spurns the pinched and mumping sick-room attitude, and the lives of saints are full of a kind of callousness to diseased conditions of body which probably no other human records show.

   • 1948, James Gould Cozzens, Guard of Honor:

     It remained necessary to make a shift at bearing yourself like a man; not mumping, not moping.

7. (transitive, intransitive) To nibble.
8. (Of a police officer) to accept a small gift or bribe in exchange for services.

Derived terms

• mumper
• Mumping Day

Noun

mump (plural mumps)

1. (obsolete) A grimace.

Etymology 2

Noun

mump (plural mumps)

1. (Britain, dialect, Somerset) A cube of peat; a spade's depth of digging turf.

References

Anagrams

• PMMU