mammisi

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French mammisi, a neologism coined by Jean-François Champollion as if from Bohairic Coptic *ⲙⲁⲙ̀ⲙⲓⲥⲓ (*mam̀misi) (a term otherwise unattested), from ⲙⲁ (ma, “place”) + ⲛ̀- (ǹ-, “of”) + ⲙⲓⲥⲓ (misi, “birth”) as a calque of earlier Egyptian pr-ms (“mammisi”, literally “house of birth”).

Noun

mammisi (plural mammisis)

1. (Egyptology) a subsidiary chapel in Ancient Egypt attached to a larger temple and associated with the nativity of a god

References

• Kockelmann, Holger (2011) “Mammisi (Birth House)” in Willeke Wendrich (ed.), UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology, Los Angeles