mummer
/ˈmʌm.ɚ/noun, verb
mummer is a noun meaning “A person who dons a disguising costume, as for a parade or a festival” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). It is spelled M-U-M-M-E-R and has 2 syllables, and it appears about once in every 39 million words in written English (wordfreq, 2021 data). The plural of mummer is mummers.
What does mummer mean?
noun
- 1
A person who dons a disguising costume, as for a parade or a festival.
- 2
An actor in a pantomime; one who communicates entirely through gesture and facial expression.
verb
- 1
Synonym of mum (“to act in pantomime or dumb show”).
We mummered taverns and restaurants and the airport (the dead man went round and round on the luggage carousel). We mummered Portuguese fishing trawlers in the harbour, where the show worked despite the language barrier, […]
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How do you pronounce mummer?
- UK /ˈmʌm.ə(ɹ)/
- US /ˈmʌm.ɚ/
Mummer has 2 syllables (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-us-mummer.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Forms of mummer
- mummers plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- mummering participle, present
- mummered participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
How common is mummer?
Mummer appears about once in every 39 million words in written English, the 191,932nd most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Mummer in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| German | Mumme, verkleideter Mensch , Pantomimenspieler, Pantomime |
| Portuguese | fantasiado, momo , mímico |
| French | mime |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does mummer come from?
From Middle English mummer, mommer, equivalent to mum + -er, perhaps conflating with Old French momeor (“jester, entertainer”), from mommer (“to wear a mask”), from momon (“mask”). Compare German Mumme (“mask”), 16th Century German mummen (“to disguise oneself”), Middle Dutch mommen, mummen (“to go about in a mask, to disguise”), Middle Low Saxon mommen (“to wear a mask, to disguise”), Dutch mom (“mask”) and mimmen (“to mask”) as well as Spanish momo (“grimace”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).