mumps

Etymology

It is formed from English mump (“a grimace”) + -s, the plural of an obsolete noun meaning a grimace (1592–1787),^{[2][3][4][5][6]} apparently with reference to the look of the face swollen by the disease.^[2][7][3] Barnhart suggests a further link with mum, since the sore throat makes speaking difficult,^[3] and Etymonline mentions the painful swallowing.^[8] The OED takes the noun mump as probably imitative, like the verb mump, to grimace (1577), which it compares with Dutch mompen (“to mumble”), German mumpfen (“to chew with a full mouth”) and Icelandic mumpa (“to mutter, murmur”).^[2] Etymonline instead derives the verb from the same Dutch verb in the sense "to cheat, deceive",^[8] which the OED gives only as the source of a later verb mump, to cheat or beg (1649).^[2] Ayto places the word in a family based on the syllable mum, an indistinct sound made with closed lips, with mumble and mummer.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

A disease causing swellings in the neck or throat, of humans or animals: 1592, in Thomas Nashe's Strange Newes.^[2][4] Barnhart's first record is Florio's A World of Words (1598),^[3] which gives Italian recchione as "a disease or swelling in the necke called the mumps".^[9] Dictionary.com dates the word to 1590–1600,^[10] and Etymonline to about 1600.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The name first covered various diseases causing swellings in the neck or throat, and only later the particular infectious disease caused by a virus.^[2] Weekley notes that the sense of melancholy is as old as that of the swelling:^[9] Nashe wrote in 1599 that the sun was "so in his mumps" about something,^[11][2] and the mumps, a fit of sulking or ill humour, is now regional in England.^[2][5] The OED compares mulligrubs, and the 17th-century slang dictionary of B. E. glosses mulligrubs with mumps.^[2][11] Johnson (1755) gave two entries: "sullenness; silent anger", and "the squinancy", that is, quinsy.^[12] Emerson used the word in an extended sense in 1841.^[2]

Timeline

• 1592 – a disease causing swellings in the neck or throat, in Nashe.^[2][4]
• 1599 – a fit of sulking or low spirits, in Nashe.^[2][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. An acute contagious viral disease, chiefly of children, with fever and swelling of the parotid glands below the ears; parotitis.^[13][4][5] It takes a singular or plural verb.^[13][5]
2. (regional) Usually the mumps: a fit of sulking or low spirits.^[2][5][11]

Word family

• mumpish

Related words

• mump
• mum
• mumble
• mummer

References

1. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d e Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
7. ^ a b Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
8. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
9. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
10. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
11. ^ a b c d Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
12. ^ Johnson, Samuel (1755), A Dictionary of the English Language, London; 4th ed. 1773; Johnson's Dictionary Online, ed. Beth Rapp Young et al.
13. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins