mumchance
English edit
Etymology edit
From Middle English mommen (“mutter, be silent”) and Middle High German mummenschantze (“game of chance as part of a masquerade, mime performance, revel”), from Old French momen (“mask”) and chance (“game of chance”).
Pronunciation edit
Adjective edit
mumchance (comparative more mumchance, superlative most mumchance)
- Mute, or not speaking; silent.
- 1821, “M.” [pseudonym], “The Traveller”, in The New Monthly Magazine and Literary Journal, volume II (Original Papers), number XII, London: Henry Colburn and Co. […], →OCLC, page 544:
- There is something exceedingly unpleasant in being obliged to answer "No," to a traveller's "Pray, Sir, were you ever abroad?" and to sit mum-chance all the time that he is running over the "grimoire" of outlandish technicalities. For my own part, I am convinced that man is, par excellence, a travelling animal; [...]
- 1966, Paul Scott, The Jewel in the Crown, page 69:
- I wrote Miss Crane off as mediocre because although she chatted quite pleasantly and intelligently over coffee she was mostly mumpchance at the dinner table. Oh, not mumpchance tout court.
- 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia (Avignon Quintet), Faber & Faber, published 1992, page 446:
- The two little children stood mumchance, but with a kindly air.
- 2001, Paula Marshall, Lord Hadleigh's Rebellion, Harlequin (Mills & Boon), 2008, page 124,
- If he did, he would remain mumchance about that, too.
Related terms edit
Noun edit
mumchance (countable and uncountable, plural mumchances)
- An old game of chance played with cards in silence.
- 1620, Thomas Dekker, Dekker his Dreame:
- The Taker or the Verser is the man must play with him, the Cards are fetcht, Mumchance or Decoy is the game: the first wager is wine, the second two pence, from two pence they rise to a shilling, from that to a pound […]
- 1820, [Walter Scott], chapter XV, in The Abbot. […], volume I, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, page 319:
- Bear and wolf, look to your prisoner—prance, hobby—hiss, dragon, and halloo, boys—we grow older every moment we stand idle, and life is too short to be spent in playing mumchance.
- A silent, stupid person.
- 1830, Mary Leman Grimstone, Louisa Egerton:
- I'm not such a mumchance, to be sure, but I've as good a fortune