MAMMY
What does "MAMMY" mean?
A child's or dialectal word for mother.
Meanings
- An affectionate, childish, or regional word for mother (common in Irish and some British and Southern American usage). He ran home crying for his mammy. informal
- A historical and now offensive stereotype of a Black enslaved or domestic woman who cared for a white family's children in the American South. Scholars critique the 'mammy' caricature used in old advertising. archaic
Word origin
A reduplicated nursery form of 'mamma', from the infant 'ma' sound; the dialectal sense for mother is recorded from the 16th century.
Remember it
MAMMY is MAMMA with the final A swapped for the cosy '-y' of nursery words like 'baby' and 'tummy'.
A little poem
A scraped knee finds one cure that fits-
'mammy' called across the kitchen, and the world resets.
couplet
What it teaches
A child's word for comfort rarely changes; it just gets harder to say out loud as you grow.
Quick facts
What does MAMMY mean?
A child's or dialectal word for mother.
Is MAMMY a valid word?
Yes — MAMMY is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is MAMMY?
MAMMY has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does MAMMY come from?
A reduplicated nursery form of 'mamma', from the infant 'ma' sound; the dialectal sense for mother is recorded from the 16th century.
What can MAMMY teach us?
A child's word for comfort rarely changes; it just gets harder to say out loud as you grow.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.