mumchance

adj
/ˈmʌm.tʃɑːns/UK/ˈmʌm.t͡ʃæns/US

Etymology

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”).

  1. derived from momen
  2. derived from mummenschantze
  3. derived from mommen

Definitions

  1. Mute, or not speaking

    Mute, or not speaking; silent.

    • 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.
    • The two little children stood mumchance, but with a kindly air.
  2. An old game of chance played with cards in silence.

    • The Taker oꝛ the Verſer is the man muſt play with him, the Cardes are fetch, Mumchance oꝛ Decoy is the game: the firſt wager is Wine, the ſecond two pence in money, from two pence they riſe to a ſhilling, from that to a pound, […]
    • 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.
  3. A silent, stupid person.

    • I'm not such a mumchance, to be sure, but I've as good a fortune

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for mumchance. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA