mummify
Americanverb (used with object)
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to make (a dead body) into a mummy, as by embalming and drying.
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to make (something) resemble a mummy; dry or shrivel up.
The dead lizard was mummified by the hot desert air.
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to preserve (an idea, institution, custom, etc.) that may have outlived its usefulness or relevance.
Those mummified customs have no place in society today.
verb (used without object)
verb
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(tr) to preserve the body of (a human or animal) as a mummy
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(intr) to dry up; shrivel
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(tr) to preserve (an outdated idea, institution, etc) while making lifeless
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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mummifysimple
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mummifiessimple
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have mummifiedperfect
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has mummifiedperfect
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am mummifyingprogressive
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are mummifyingprogressive
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is mummifyingprogressive
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have been mummifyingperfect progressive
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has been mummifyingperfect progressive
Past
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mummifiedsimple
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had mummifiedperfect
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was mummifyingprogressive
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were mummifyingprogressive
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had been mummifyingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of mummify
Explanation
To mummify is to make a mummy — to prepare a dead body for preservation after burial. Ancient Egyptians would often mummify bodies by wrapping them in cloth. Don't try that at home! Many cultures have had a tradition of mummification — in other words, they would mummify their dead, often to insure a happy afterlife, by removing the internal organs, treating the body with minerals and oils, and wrapping it. Sometimes burial conditions, like a very dry location, have served to accidentally mummify a body. Mummify adds the verb-forming suffix fy to mummy, rooted in the Arabic mumiyah.
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:
The Chinchorro people of northern Chile started to intentionally mummify their dead about 2,000 years before the Egyptians—and thousands of years before that, the Atacama Desert was doing it for them.
From National Geographic ● Aug. 7, 2023
Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, said the workshops had been used to mummify humans and sacred animals.
From Washington Times ● May 27, 2023
That gave the animal’s skin a chance to mummify.
From Scientific American ● Oct. 14, 2022
That means they used mortuary practices to conserve the bodies rather than leave them to naturally mummify in the dry climate - although some naturally mummified bodies have also been found at the sites.
From BBC ● Oct. 24, 2021
“But first, let’s get your ankle healed before we mummify you. Okay?”
From "Joey Pigza Swallowed the Key" by Jack Gantos
In honeybees, this fungus causes an illness known as stonebrood disease, which mummifies the young bees.
From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2023
She was recently packing for a trip to visit Summum, a group in Utah that mummifies pets.
From New York Times ● Oct. 11, 2011
Your team mummifies you with five tight belts.
From Time Magazine Archive
It is often claimed that phosphorus eaten by rats or mice dries up or mummifies the body so that no odor results.
From House Rats and Mice Farmers' Bulletin 896 by Lantz, David E.
And, again rightly or wrongly, I have also contended that the hand of purpose deadens and mummifies story.
From A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 To the Close of the 19th Century by Saintsbury, George
While exploring the island's western coastline above Waihere Bay, Köhler spotted a three-dimensionally preserved, mummified fish fossil embedded in a steep section of cliff that was almost impossible to reach.
From Science Daily ● Jun. 12, 2026
He remained frozen in the ice until two German hikers stumbled across his mummified remains in 1991 in the northern Italian region of South Tyrol.
From Barron's ● Jun. 3, 2026
Highlights include the larger-than-life granite kneeling statue of Queen Hatshepsut from her terraced temple at Deir el-Bahri and a mummified crocodile that measures over eight feet long.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 5, 2025
Their partially mummified bodies were found at their home by maintenance workers at their gated Santa Fe community.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 31, 2025
I stand there looking at her, all mummified in the sheets.
From "The Help" by Kathryn Stockett
Rühli says he believes this could have inspired ancient Egyptians to start mummifying their honored dead.
From National Geographic ● Aug. 7, 2023
That's the question my Food52 colleagues asked when they saw me mummifying avocado halves in plastic wrap to prepare them for life eternal in the freezer.
From Salon ● May 15, 2021
Forget a quick splodge of face paint or mummifying yourself in loo roll - celebrities always bring their costume A-game for Halloween.
From BBC ● Nov. 1, 2019
Logically I know, of course, that such power is a fantasy, just as the necrologists of ancient Egypt surely suspected, from time to time, that the artifice of their mummifying efforts was ultimately for naught.
From Slate ● Sep. 28, 2018
Sometime before 5000 b.c. they began mummifying bodies—children at first, adults later on.
From "1491" by Charles C. Mann
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.
