Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A performance by mummers.
- n. A pretentious or hypocritical show or ceremony.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Pantomime as enacted by mummers; a show or performance of mummers.
- n. A ceremony or performance considered false or pretentious; farcical show; hypocritical disguise and paradc: applied in contempt to various religious ceremonies by people who are of other sects or beliefs.
Wiktionary
- n. merrymaking; the performance of a mummer
- n. a ridiculous or ostentatious ceremony, especially of a religious nature
- n. a showy but empty performance
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. Masking; frolic in disguise; buffoonery.
- n. Farcical show; hypocritical disguise and parade or ceremonies.
WordNet 3.0
- n. meaningless ceremonies and flattery
Etymologies
- From Old French momerie, mommerie. (Wiktionary)
- French mommerie, from Old French momer, to wear a mask, pantomime. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“In fact, the mummery is the chief matter – which is what makes the play so attractive to children, and it may be added, so suitable for their performance.”
“The horse looked about in the thick of the night, as the head of the horse peers out of the cloak, in Welsh mummery, at”
“The horse looked about in the thick of the night, as the head of the horse peers out of the cloak, in Welsh mummery, at Christmas-tide.”
“It needed to be left in peace and quiet, not be stirred up to listen to what, in her increasing ire, the nurse termed mummery and flummery.”
“[332] The same author says elsewhere, "Columella, Cato, Vitruvius, and Pliny, all had their notions of the advantages of cutting timber at certain ages of the moon; a piece of mummery which is still preserved in the royal ordonnances of France to the conservators of the forests, who are directed to fell oaks only 'in the wane of the moon' and 'when the wind is at north.”
“The "mummery" consisted in slow, gliding motions, in whirlings about intended to be graceful, in slow liftings of the hands upward, and in the beating of the drums.”
“The bases of morality are sapped in the name of liberty; the discipline of the Church, when not branded as sheer "mummery," is held up as hostile to personal freedom; and her dogmas, with one or two exceptions, are treated as opinions which may be received or rejected with like indifference.”
“In this "mummery" the most successful spectacle was that presented by a group arranged in obvious ridicule of”
“In this "mummery" the most successful spectacle was that presented by a group arranged in obvious ridicule of Granvelle.”
“Mussolini pushed through various municipal "improvements" fit only for fascist mummery.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mummery’.
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This is not a list
you know that thing where the Eskimos have 50 words for snow?
little white lie, big lie, the Big Lie, economical with t..., muddy the waters, fabrication, deception, lies, damned lies..., façade, slander, omission, web of lies and 159 more...
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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LIT - Ulysses - key words and phrases
money cowrie, bedraggle, omphalos, ineluctable, postprandial, bladderwrack, modality barnacle..., loofah, shipworm, cither, embattle, Malachi and 503 more...
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It Gives
What follows is an exercise in ordinary eternal hyperlexity, prepared in the fashion of paper matches.
fixity, commonalia, fourchette, acroamatic, etiolate, exuviae, roguery, frustrum, plenum, lowlihood, knack, surd and 2 more...
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Nonsense
Synonyms of "nonsense"
tomfoolery, balderdash, poppycock, lalapalooza, hullabaloo, hodgepodge, gibberish, shenanigans, hootenanny, jabberwocky, gobbledygook, mummery and 21 more...
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Words I like
A list contrived for the sole purpose of storing words I like to include in my writing; words that inspire or carry power for me.
contrite, meadow, sward, ossary, calumny, moribund, necropolis, chthonic, murmur, erstwhile, chime, beryl and 63 more...
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wry -ery
inspired by Rolig's 'pocketful of -ry'
mattery, vachery, ewery, sphery, fullery, eggery, orangery, swannery, serictery, orrery, punguinery, mummery and 24 more...
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Chennessy's Words
philistine, messianic, dyad, cult, bourgeois, blot, ploy, polyglot, lingua franca, cumbersome, lumber, petit-bourgeois and 446 more...
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FTL
Words listed first by me that don't belong in any other list.
licit, precis, mnemosyne, badinage, mariposa, lepidoptera, coruscation, poignant, meme, oxymoron, xenophobia, asterism and 128 more...
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My Favorite Words
mummery, mellifluous, ineffable, lascivious, asphyxiate, defenstrate, fumet
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Words I will probably never use
décolleté, pendragon, amerce, viviparous, dragoon, brigand, outlaw, outlawry, lugubrious, boor, contretemps, decrepit and 151 more...
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ulyssean
... as in "by James Joyce"
stately, plump, aloft, gurgling, untonsured, chrysostomos, jowl, parapet, jesuit, indigestion, scutter, noserag and 688 more...
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A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Words gathered while reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce.
refectory, soutane, ha-ha, jewelly, girt, centenary, collywobbles, coadjutor, catafalque, beeftea, pierhead, bedad and 235 more...
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Loaded Dice
Off the straight and narrow; less than straight arrow.
chicanery, sophistry, pilfer, rook, diddle, fleece, grift, poach, rustle, pinch, abscond, steal and 140 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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Favorite Words
i love words.
ricochet, clavicle, etymology, equivocate, decoupage, dillydally, effervescent, flimflam, haberdashery, hullabaloo, debacle, juxtapose and 210 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for mummery.

magma "…Delusion convulses the leafless trees with the deepest appreciation of the mummery…" - William Carlos Williams, Imaginations Mar 26, 2010
bilby bummery - indiscriminate mooning
plummery - flattery by fruit preserves
gummery - inane fines for chewing gum
stummery - meaningless silence
tummery - bland kickshaw
slummery - all poverty kinda looks the same
fe-fi-fo-fummery - a giant serve of mummery
glummery - I don't need a reason to be depressed
Feb 8, 2009
avivamagnolia
=A ridiculous, hypocritical, or pretentious ceremony or performance
=A performance by mummers
=Etymology: Middle French momerie, from momer
=Date: circa 1530 Jan 19, 2009
dontcry As in "Mummery's Day?" May 9, 2008
brtom Across the page the symbols moved in grave morrice, in the mummery of their letters, wearing quaint caps of squares and cubes.
Joyce, Ulysses, 2 Dec 29, 2006