mummy

mummy — noun

1. a child's warm, loving word for their mother — the person who gave birth to them

1.nounA1
Definition

a child's warm, loving word for their mother — the person who gave birth to them or takes care of them, used when talking to or about her.

Example

Noor's mummy picked her up from school every day at half past three.

Sora ran straight to his mummy and wrapped his arms around her legs.

mummy with affectionate physical actions

Common collocations
  • my mummy
  • your mummy
  • mummy and daddy
  • mummy said
  • dear mummy
Synonyms
  • mommy

    American English equivalent; same register but different regional usage

  • mum

    Shorter British form, also informal but slightly less 'babyish' than mummy

  • mother

    Neutral or formal term; used in all varieties of English

Antonyms
  • daddy

    The corresponding affectionate term for a father

Grammar Patterns

my/your mummy

[possessive] mummy

Usage Note

Primarily used in British English by young children and by adults speaking affectionately to or about their mother. The American English equivalent is 'mommy'. This sense is not used for dead bodies — see sense 2.

2. a dead person or animal whose body has been kept from rotting by a special dryin

2.nounB1
Definition

a dead person or animal whose body has been kept from rotting by a special drying or chemical treatment, often wrapped in cloth — most famously done in ancient Egypt as part of burial traditions.

Example

The museum has a room full of ancient Egyptian mummies in tall glass cases.

Archaeologists found a well-preserved mummy buried under the desert sand near Luxor.

Common collocations
  • Egyptian mummy
  • ancient mummy
  • mummy's tomb
  • unwrap a mummy
  • mummy's curse
  • mummy of a pharaoh
  • mummified remains
Synonyms
  • corpse

    Any dead body, without the implication of preservation or wrapping

  • remains

    More general and often euphemistic; can refer to bones, ashes, or partial body parts

  • cadaver

    A dead body used for medical or scientific study; neutral about preservation method

Grammar Patterns

[adjective] mummy

mummy of + [person/place]

Usage Note

Often appears with 'ancient' or 'Egyptian.' A mummy still has soft tissues (skin, organs) preserved; it is not a skeleton. The word can also refer to naturally preserved bodies found in bogs, ice, or dry deserts, not only those made by people.

Common Mistakes

They found a mummy skeleton in the tomb.
They found a mummy in the tomb.
A mummy has preserved soft tissues and is wrapped; a bare skeleton is not a mummy.
The pharaoh's mummy coffin was made of gold.
The pharaoh's mummy was inside a golden coffin.
The mummy is the body; the container is a coffin or sarcophagus.

Word family

Synonym discussion

Sense: noun/2

All four words refer to a dead body, but they differ in context and connotation. 'Mummy' specifically describes a body that has been preserved — either deliberately (as in ancient Egypt) or naturally (by ice, bog, or desert conditions) — and is often wrapped. 'Corpse' is the general term for a dead human body, with no implication of how long it has been dead or how it was treated. 'Remains' is broader and slightly more euphemistic; it can include bones, ashes, or partial body parts found at an archaeological site. 'Cadaver' is a clinical term used mainly in medical and scientific settings for a body donated for dissection or study. For example: 'The archaeologists uncovered the mummy of a priest still wrapped in linen,' but 'The medical students examined a cadaver in the anatomy lab.'

mummy ↗corpse ↗remains ↗cadaver

Etymology

ArabicLatinFrenchEnglish

The word 'mummy' has two completely separate origins. The mother sense comes from the natural baby-talk sound 'ma' for mother, found in many languages around the world. The preserved body sense traces back through French 'momie' and Latin 'mumia' to Arabic 'mūmiyā', meaning 'embalmed body' — a word that originally referred to bitumen (a type of tar) used in the Egyptian embalming process.