MUMMY
What does "MUMMY" mean?
A preserved dead body, especially one embalmed and wrapped in the ancient Egyptian manner.
Meanings
- A body preserved against decay, especially by ancient Egyptian embalming and wrapping in linen. The museum's star exhibit was a 3,000-year-old mummy in a gilded case.
- A mother, in British and informal usage. The toddler ran across the playground shouting for his mummy. informal
Did you know?
- The word 'mummy' comes from the Persian word for wax - medieval Europeans mistakenly thought the bodies were sealed with a tar-like 'mumiya', and the name for the substance became the name for the corpse.
- For centuries, ground-up Egyptian mummies were sold in European apothecaries as a medicine called 'mumia' - people genuinely ate the dead as a remedy well into the 1900s.
Word origin
From Medieval Latin 'mumia', from Arabic 'mumiya', 'embalmed body', from Persian 'mum', 'wax' - early Europeans wrongly believed the bodies were preserved with bitumen; the 'mother' sense is an unrelated nursery word.
Remember it
MUMMY: the same five letters mean both a wrapped pharaoh and your mum - both keep you safe, just very differently.
A little poem
Linen, gold, and salt-
they wrapped a king against time
and time unwrapped him.
haiku
Wordplay
- Why don't mummies take vacations? They're afraid they'll relax and unwind.
What it teaches
We embalm what we cannot bear to lose, but preservation is not the same as keeping; even kings are eventually unwrapped.
Quick facts
What does MUMMY mean?
A preserved dead body, especially one embalmed and wrapped in the ancient Egyptian manner.
Is MUMMY a valid word?
Yes — MUMMY is one of the answer words in Wordul, the daily word game.
How many letters is MUMMY?
MUMMY has 5 letters and 2 syllables.
Where does MUMMY come from?
From Medieval Latin 'mumia', from Arabic 'mumiya', 'embalmed body', from Persian 'mum', 'wax' - early Europeans wrongly believed the bodies were preserved with bitumen; the 'mother' sense is an unrelated nursery word.
What can MUMMY teach us?
We embalm what we cannot bear to lose, but preservation is not the same as keeping; even kings are eventually unwrapped.
How players do
Be the first to solve it.