mummery
Americannoun
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the performance of mummers.
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any performance, ceremony, etc., regarded as absurd, false, or ostentatious.
noun
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a performance by mummers
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hypocritical or ostentatious ceremony
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of mummery
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
But what was once the norm can now seem a kind of ableist mummery, which this production attempts to sidestep by offering a Richard with no physical impairments at all.
From New York Times ● Jul. 11, 2022
Typically, contemporary novelists speak reverently of their form, as if the result were some kind of sacred object, so Alice’s position has a refreshing lack of mummery.
From Slate ● Sep. 1, 2021
“You know what that means,” is all he offered, and, after an evening of portentous headgear mummery, this hint at abdication should not be taken lightly.
From Slate ● Dec. 20, 2019
It's all mummery and flummery, and conducted with a winning amateurishness.
From The Guardian ● Oct. 1, 2012
Back in the Planky Town Quentyn had played the wineseller, but the mummery had chafed at him, so when the Domishmen changed ships at Lys they had changed roles as well.
From "A Dance with Dragons" by George R. R. Martin
Nor was it ''mere timidity or fanaticism or calculated hardness: it was a deep and speculative thing: hatred of all shams, scorn of all mummeries, a bitter, merciless pleasure in the hard facts.
From Time Magazine Archive
He grew cold to newsmen, turned his press conferences into funereal mummeries, finally began canceling them altogether.
From Time Magazine Archive
You were wedded by no gipsy mummeries, as you call them; you took Sinnamenta Liversedge, in the presence of many persons, solemnly to wife.'
From Lost Sir Massingberd, v. 1/2 A Romance of Real Life by Payn, James
Give not so earnest a mind to these mummeries, child.
From Robin Hood by Wyeth, N. C. (Newell Convers)
Pitiable and disgusting as the scene was I could not help laughing at the mummeries of the fellow.
From Scenes and Adventures in Affghanistan by Taylor, William
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
