hugger-mugger

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (1)  · 
"Such a hell of a hugger-mugger you never saw!

View all »
Definitions (19)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. noun Disorderly confusion; muddle.
  2. noun Secrecy; concealment.
  3. adjective Disorderly; jumbled.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (7)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (4)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 77 times.

On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Etymologies (2)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Origin unknown.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also written hucker-mucker, Scots huggrie-muggrie, hudge-mudge: in the sense of confusion, disorder, sometimes contr. to hug-mug; Ascham has huddermother (Toxophilus, 1545), Skelton, hoder-moder (Halliwell), and Middle English hody-moke occurs, indicating that the modern forms are popular variations of a compound which would be analogically *hudder-mucker, from Middle English huden, hiden, hide (later also the closely similar huddle, which stands for *hudder, from Middle English hoderen: see huddle), + Middle English *muken, *moken, a verb not found except as in hody-moke, but the prob. source of Middle English mokerere, a miser, and of modern English dial. mog, sulk, be sullen, muggard, sullen, displeased; cf. Old High German muccazzen, mutter, Middle High German muckzen, muchzen, German mucksen, G. also mucken, mutter, grumble, = Swedish mucka = Danish mukka: see mog and muggard. For the connection of ‘secrecy’ with ‘confusion,’ cf. hide as related to huddle.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »

/ˈhəgərˈməgər/
by American Heritage

Charts

We are still working on calculating this word's frequency.

Recently looked up

caucasion · Billiards · skullduggery · volley · quire

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

Der dicke Dachdecker deckte dir dein Dach, drum dank dem dicken Dachdecker, dass der dicke Dachdecker dir dein Dach deckte. · weitläufig · und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, so leben sie noch heute · redescheu · selbstverständlich