The Collaborative International Dictionary
Mumm \Mumm\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. Mummed; p. pr. & vb. n. Mumming.] [D. mimmen to mask, mom a mask; akin to G. mumme disguise; prob. of imitative origin, and akin to E. mum, mumble, in allusion to the indistinctness of speech occasioned by talking from behind a mask. Cf. Mumble, Mummery.] To sport or make diversion in a mask or disguise; to mask.
With mumming and with masking all around.
--Spenser.
Wiktionary
n. A pantomime or dumb show. vb. (present participle of mum English)
WordNet
See mum
Usage examples of "mumming".
With the careless mechanicism of human speech, the technicalities of practical mumming were retained in these productions when they had ceased to be concerned with the stage at all.
They move frenetic, in a sped-up mumming of their usual work, over a rubble of nimbostratus stone.
Thy lewd and Circean life shall be dragged to day--thy mumming oracles disclosed--the fane of the idol Isis shall be a byword and a scorn--the name of Arbaces a mark for the hisses of execration!
Dance of the Five Sons is a purely imaginary synthesis combining in most unlikely profusion the elements of several dances and mumming plays.
It is probably the survival of an ancient fertility rite and combines, in one ceremony, the features of a number of other seasonal dances and mumming plays.
Nor, while we are at it, did I encounter any mumming, still less any hodening (a kind of organized group begging for coins with a view to buying drinks at the nearest pub, which I think is an outstanding idea), or many of the other traditions of an English Christmas that were expressly promised in the lyrics of carols and the novels of authors like Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.