MUMMY

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does mummy mean? 

• MUMMY (noun)
  The noun MUMMY has 2 senses:

1. informal terms for a mother

2. a body embalmed and dried and wrapped for burial (as in ancient Egypt)

  Familiarity information: MUMMY used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MUMMY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Informal terms for a mother

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

ma; mama; mamma; mammy; mom; momma; mommy; mum; mummy

Hypernyms ("mummy" is a kind of...):

female parent; mother (a woman who has given birth to a child (also used as a term of address to your mother))

Sense 2

Meaning:

A body embalmed and dried and wrapped for burial (as in ancient Egypt)

Classified under:

Nouns denoting body parts

Hypernyms ("mummy" is a kind of...):

body; dead body (a natural object consisting of a dead animal or person)

Derivation:

mummify (dry up and shrivel due to complete loss of moisture)

mummify (remove the organs and dry out (a dead body) in order to preserve it)

 Context examples 

As he hung over the coffin, his face was concealed by long locks of ragged hair; but one vast hand was extended, in colour and apparent texture like that of a mummy.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

He was very, very old, so old that he was past all comparison, and no one by looking at his mummy skin and fish-like eyes could give a guess at his years.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

In the tomb, there were mummies, jewelry and statues.

(Discovery of Two Tombs Dating Back 3,500 Years Announced in Egypt, VOA)

It was opened to add more mummies during the 21st Dynasty, about 3,000 years ago, to protect them during a period when tomb-robbing was common.

(Egypt Announces Discovery of 3,500-Year-Old Luxor Tomb, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

Martin, after a few instructions, sorted the great heaps of soiled clothes, while Joe started the masher and made up fresh supplies of soft- soap, compounded of biting chemicals that compelled him to swathe his mouth and nostrils and eyes in bath-towels till he resembled a mummy.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Their prudence, unanimity, unacquaintedness with fear, and their love of their country, would amply supply all defects in the military art. Imagine twenty thousand of them breaking into the midst of an European army, confounding the ranks, overturning the carriages, battering the warriors’ faces into mummy by terrible yerks from their hinder hoofs; for they would well deserve the character given to Augustus, Recalcitrat undique tutus.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

A mummy again endued with animation could not be so hideous as that wretch.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

The tomb contains a mummy wrapped in linen, clay vessels, a collection of about 450 statues, and painted wooden funerary masks.

(Discovery of Two Tombs Dating Back 3,500 Years Announced in Egypt, VOA)

He said a shaft in the tomb contained mummies belonging to ancient Egyptian people who lived during the 21st and 22nd dynasties.

(Egypt Announces Discovery of 3,500-Year-Old Luxor Tomb, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

In April, archaeologists unearthed several mummies, 10 colourful wooden sarcophagi and more than 1,000 funerary statues near the city of Luxor.

(Egypt Announces Discovery of 3,500-Year-Old Luxor Tomb, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)