释义 |
nounPlural mums mʌmməm British informal One's mother. she often goes round to see her mum, who lives nearby as name Jane worried all the way home about telling Mum Example sentencesExamples - Despite their loss, her mum Patti and family have now thrown themselves into raising cash for research into the rare disease.
- Recalling his hospital visits in his mother's last days, Hugh writes about how he made his beloved mum laugh by wearing her bedpan as a hat and blowing up surgical gloves to resemble udders.
- My mum lives in Scotland and she thinks I'm a star.
- I am a working mum living in a rural village 17 km from Lismore.
- But with my youngest daughter, we took the initiative and named her after Mum's mother's mum, Asantewaa.
- These results are great news for all mums, but working mums will feel particularly reassured.
- A defiant single mum plans to create a haven for her children and their friends to rebuild community spirit after standing up to nuisance neighbours.
- Was I jumping to conclusions thinking of my mum as a careless mother?
- When my mum spoke it was more scary than receiving a beating.
- His mum was a single mother who had a succession of boyfriends, none of whom were able to act as a father figure to him or his sister Denise.
- They are the ultimate ‘new men’, happy to gossip at the school gates with the mums while their own child's mother is out at work pursuing her career and bringing in the family income.
- She wasn't my real mother - my real mum died when she had me - but I called her my mama.
- Her comparison of older mothers to teenage mums and her call for government intervention is likely to prove highly controversial.
- His mum Shirley was a devout Christian woman, a Methodist, just a touch humourless but endlessly patient, kind and smiling.
- As much as the vast majority of people adore their mums, mums are still one of the most frustrating and annoying creatures to walk this planet.
- ‘I like to do the mum thing and help out at school and you cannot do that when you are working full time,’ she says.
- The Robinson girls not only learned how to grow vegetables but also, thanks to the expert tutelage of mum Joan, how to cook them.
- If your mum clicked with their mum then you would have a new friend whether you liked it or not!
- Here we speak to a first-time mum, a mother of four and that other essential to baby-making, a father, about their experiences of life after childbirth.
- Like his mum - and her mother before her - Tom suffers from aura migraines.
Synonyms mother, female parent, materfamilias, matriarch
Origin Mid 17th century: abbreviation of mummy2. adjective mʌmməm predicative Silent. Example sentencesExamples - We didn't really see much reason for it, but we remained mum all the same.
- These shows depend on contestants remaining mum about the show's outcome until the airdate.
- They kept their engagement and pregnancy mum for months.
- However, his doctors are still remaining mum on his condition until the complete tests take place later this week.
- The company is remaining mum on the core question about its instant messaging technology.
- He was mum as to whether the carrier plans to turn it on in the future.
- Well the most wonderful thing happened last night, but I have to be mum on the subject, so I can't say a word.
Synonyms silent, quiet, mute, dumb, tight-lipped, close-mouthed, uncommunicative, unforthcoming, reticent, secretive
Phrases informal Remain silent, especially so as not to reveal a secret. he was keeping mum about a possible move to West Ham Example sentencesExamples - The hospital authorities also kept mum about his visit.
- I kept mum, as it were, about the fact I'd had an abortion.
- Many Gandhians who had kept mum during earlier riots are protesting this time and actively working for restoration of peace.
- A good friend can keep mum about your deepest darkest secrets.
- Defying the age of celebrity, and resisting the lucrative market for antiquities, the property owner kept mum about his treasure for decades.
- But New York Times staffers kept mum not so much out of fear of reprisals as out of respect for the institution.
- I presume that the teachers and administration kept mum and can only suppose that it was the boy himself who publicized his problems.
- The fish sign took two people to make - you made a curved line casually on the ground with a toe, if the other person didn't add the other curve you kept mum.
- Think what you may; keeping mum gives me one secret more.
- The CIA though has conveniently kept mum as of now.
Synonyms silent, quiet, mute, dumb, tight-lipped, close-mouthed, uncommunicative, unforthcoming, reticent, secretive
informal (as a request or warning) say nothing; don't reveal a secret. I know I can rely upon your discretion, mum's the word Example sentencesExamples - He also said not to mention that I was paid to write an update for him, so mum's the word.
- For when it came to telling her mother of her dramatic ordeal, Jenny decided it was a case of mum's the word.
- But she knew that it was going to be mum's the word and Faith would find out when she arrived in the principal's office Monday morning.
- Go out and have some fun, but remember, mum's the word!
- But the best thing of all about all the hand-outs in this welfare state is that mum's the word, when it comes to explaining to taxpayers why you need their money.
- The mystery is certainly captivating Washington, while mum's the word at the White House.
Synonyms say nothing, keep quiet, don't breathe a word, don't tell a soul, don't give the game away, keep it secret, keep it to yourself, keep it under your hat, play dumb
Origin Late Middle English: imitative of a sound made with closed lips. Like ma (early 19th century) and mama (mid 16th century), mum (late 16th century) and mummy (mid 18th century) go back eventually to the first semi-articulate sounds made by children, which tend to be ‘ma, ma’. Mother itself probably has the same origin. The expressions mum's the word and to keep mum are perhaps most associated with life during the Second World War, conjuring up warnings about careless talk costing lives—for example, ‘Be like dad. Keep mum.’ Both phrases are much older, being recorded as far back as the early 16th century. The word mum itself was used on its own in medieval times to mean ‘hush!’ or ‘shh!’, and probably originated as a representation of the sound you make when you close your lips firmly together and try to speak. It also gave us mumble (Middle English). Ancient Egyptian mummies are named after the substance in which the dead person's body was embalmed. Mummy in this sense goes back to Arabic mūmiyā ‘bitumen’ for ‘the body of an embalmed person or animal’ mummy is recorded in English from the early 17th century.
Rhymes become, benumb, Brum, bum, chum, crumb, drum, glum, gum, ho-hum, hum, Kara Kum, lum, numb, plum, plumb, Rhum, rhumb, rum, scrum, scum, slum, some, strum, stum, succumb, sum, swum, thrum, thumb, tum, yum-yum nounPlural mums mʌmməm informal A cultivated chrysanthemum. Example sentencesExamples - The flower lady buffed the bouquet out with orchids, mums, other fragrant weird blooms I don't know the names of, and various greens.
- Whether you want to compete or simply collect mums, the National Chrysanthemum Society has 43 chapters across the country.
- Then the first cold front rolls in, slays the mums, frosts the lawn, whistles down the chimney and signals the reign of the new season.
- Pumpkins, bales of hay, mums in colors that mimic the trees, a few scarecrows and a wooden black cat complete the package.
- Garden mums give us a burst of color in the fall when used to replace the annuals we have enjoyed since spring.
- Jaws gaped, dessert was quickly served, and the topic moved to something like the appropriate watering time for mums.
- Autumn's butterflies - fritillaries and migrating monarchs - match the burnt-orange mums just beginning to bloom.
- However, if you live in a climate with winters marked by regular hard freezes, you can improve your mums ' winter survival by cutting off tops after new growth begins in spring.
- Saint Mary's Church was decorated with pink and white mums.
- A hollowed pumpkin is a fitting place to tuck a small pot of mums or an arrangement of fresh or dried flowers.
- When my primroses have served their cheerful spring purpose, it will be easy to replace them with pots of other colorful summer favorites such as mums, asters, or a geranium.
- Autumn-colored mums, pink carnations and fucshia orchids lining the streets.
- Put tall plants behind short ones and plan to have continuous color from the first flowering bulbs of early spring to hardy mums, which will withstand a light frost.
- The deep green fine-textured foliage of mums is remarkably aromatic, lending a distinctive ambience to the containers in which they are planted.
Origin Late 19th century: abbreviation. verbmums, mumming, mummed mʌmməm [no object]Act in a traditional masked mime or a mummers' play. after they had masked and mummed, away they went Example sentencesExamples - The common and consistent point is that they took a selection of historic performance practices - morris dances and sword dances, mumming, and others in England - and declared them to be the survivals of ancient sacrificial rituals.
- The section on popular masking proceeds through chapters on early masking, carnival, and mumming, all of which pursue a contextual approach to these forms.
- The Camloch Mummers have been invited to the festival this year, and responses to a questionnaire on the mumming or rhymers tradition are asked for.
- The English writers thought they found sacrifice in sword dancing and mumming, which sometimes included mock killings; surely this reflected ancient sacrifices, faded to rude play acting?
- He and others argued that English morris dancing and sword dancing, and mumming, were closely linked, and in fact represented the surviving fragments of a once-united, pan-European sacrificial ritual.
- The mummers wore oversized, wire-constructed costumes and carried little umbrellas as they mummed along.
- He was the first to draw scholarly attention to the custom of Christmas mumming in Newfoundland and its accompanying traditional drama, as evidenced in the standard work on the subject, Christmas Mumming in Newfoundland.
- An essential part of the mumming tradition was audience participation, with the crowd hissing the dragon and cheering St George to victory, and that's probably where we get our robust pantomime backchat these days.
- It's an old tradition, which, along with wassailing and mumming, we have performed over the years in and around Skipton, and many people, especially those young in heart, enjoy the music and dance in which all are invited to participate.
Origin Late Middle English: compare with mum1 and Middle Low German mummen. nounməmməm British informal One's mother. she often goes round to see her mum, who lives nearby as name Jane worried all the way home about telling Mum Example sentencesExamples - As much as the vast majority of people adore their mums, mums are still one of the most frustrating and annoying creatures to walk this planet.
- Like his mum - and her mother before her - Tom suffers from aura migraines.
- The Robinson girls not only learned how to grow vegetables but also, thanks to the expert tutelage of mum Joan, how to cook them.
- If your mum clicked with their mum then you would have a new friend whether you liked it or not!
- My mum lives in Scotland and she thinks I'm a star.
- ‘I like to do the mum thing and help out at school and you cannot do that when you are working full time,’ she says.
- A defiant single mum plans to create a haven for her children and their friends to rebuild community spirit after standing up to nuisance neighbours.
- Here we speak to a first-time mum, a mother of four and that other essential to baby-making, a father, about their experiences of life after childbirth.
- Was I jumping to conclusions thinking of my mum as a careless mother?
- Recalling his hospital visits in his mother's last days, Hugh writes about how he made his beloved mum laugh by wearing her bedpan as a hat and blowing up surgical gloves to resemble udders.
- But with my youngest daughter, we took the initiative and named her after Mum's mother's mum, Asantewaa.
- When my mum spoke it was more scary than receiving a beating.
- I am a working mum living in a rural village 17 km from Lismore.
- They are the ultimate ‘new men’, happy to gossip at the school gates with the mums while their own child's mother is out at work pursuing her career and bringing in the family income.
- Her comparison of older mothers to teenage mums and her call for government intervention is likely to prove highly controversial.
- His mum was a single mother who had a succession of boyfriends, none of whom were able to act as a father figure to him or his sister Denise.
- His mum Shirley was a devout Christian woman, a Methodist, just a touch humourless but endlessly patient, kind and smiling.
- She wasn't my real mother - my real mum died when she had me - but I called her my mama.
- These results are great news for all mums, but working mums will feel particularly reassured.
- Despite their loss, her mum Patti and family have now thrown themselves into raising cash for research into the rare disease.
Synonyms mother, female parent, materfamilias, matriarch
Origin Mid 17th century: abbreviation of mummy. Compare with mom. adjectiveməmməm Silent. Example sentencesExamples - We didn't really see much reason for it, but we remained mum all the same.
- They kept their engagement and pregnancy mum for months.
- Well the most wonderful thing happened last night, but I have to be mum on the subject, so I can't say a word.
- However, his doctors are still remaining mum on his condition until the complete tests take place later this week.
- He was mum as to whether the carrier plans to turn it on in the future.
- The company is remaining mum on the core question about its instant messaging technology.
- These shows depend on contestants remaining mum about the show's outcome until the airdate.
Synonyms silent, quiet, mute, dumb, tight-lipped, close-mouthed, uncommunicative, unforthcoming, reticent, secretive
Phrases informal Remain silent, especially so as not to reveal a secret. he was keeping mum about a possible move to Canada Example sentencesExamples - A good friend can keep mum about your deepest darkest secrets.
- The hospital authorities also kept mum about his visit.
- The fish sign took two people to make - you made a curved line casually on the ground with a toe, if the other person didn't add the other curve you kept mum.
- The CIA though has conveniently kept mum as of now.
- I kept mum, as it were, about the fact I'd had an abortion.
- Many Gandhians who had kept mum during earlier riots are protesting this time and actively working for restoration of peace.
- But New York Times staffers kept mum not so much out of fear of reprisals as out of respect for the institution.
- Think what you may; keeping mum gives me one secret more.
- Defying the age of celebrity, and resisting the lucrative market for antiquities, the property owner kept mum about his treasure for decades.
- I presume that the teachers and administration kept mum and can only suppose that it was the boy himself who publicized his problems.
Synonyms silent, quiet, mute, dumb, tight-lipped, close-mouthed, uncommunicative, unforthcoming, reticent, secretive
informal (as a request or warning) say nothing; don't reveal a secret. Example sentencesExamples - But the best thing of all about all the hand-outs in this welfare state is that mum's the word, when it comes to explaining to taxpayers why you need their money.
- Go out and have some fun, but remember, mum's the word!
- The mystery is certainly captivating Washington, while mum's the word at the White House.
- He also said not to mention that I was paid to write an update for him, so mum's the word.
- For when it came to telling her mother of her dramatic ordeal, Jenny decided it was a case of mum's the word.
- But she knew that it was going to be mum's the word and Faith would find out when she arrived in the principal's office Monday morning.
Synonyms say nothing, keep quiet, don't breathe a word, don't tell a soul, don't give the game away, keep it secret, keep it to yourself, keep it under your hat, play dumb
Origin Late Middle English: imitative of a sound made with closed lips. nounməmməm informal A cultivated chrysanthemum. Example sentencesExamples - Whether you want to compete or simply collect mums, the National Chrysanthemum Society has 43 chapters across the country.
- Then the first cold front rolls in, slays the mums, frosts the lawn, whistles down the chimney and signals the reign of the new season.
- The flower lady buffed the bouquet out with orchids, mums, other fragrant weird blooms I don't know the names of, and various greens.
- Put tall plants behind short ones and plan to have continuous color from the first flowering bulbs of early spring to hardy mums, which will withstand a light frost.
- Autumn's butterflies - fritillaries and migrating monarchs - match the burnt-orange mums just beginning to bloom.
- Autumn-colored mums, pink carnations and fucshia orchids lining the streets.
- The deep green fine-textured foliage of mums is remarkably aromatic, lending a distinctive ambience to the containers in which they are planted.
- When my primroses have served their cheerful spring purpose, it will be easy to replace them with pots of other colorful summer favorites such as mums, asters, or a geranium.
- Jaws gaped, dessert was quickly served, and the topic moved to something like the appropriate watering time for mums.
- Pumpkins, bales of hay, mums in colors that mimic the trees, a few scarecrows and a wooden black cat complete the package.
- Saint Mary's Church was decorated with pink and white mums.
- A hollowed pumpkin is a fitting place to tuck a small pot of mums or an arrangement of fresh or dried flowers.
- Garden mums give us a burst of color in the fall when used to replace the annuals we have enjoyed since spring.
- However, if you live in a climate with winters marked by regular hard freezes, you can improve your mums ' winter survival by cutting off tops after new growth begins in spring.
Origin Late 19th century: abbreviation. verbməmməm [no object]Act in a traditional masked mime or a mummers' play. after they had masked and mummed, away they went Example sentencesExamples - The English writers thought they found sacrifice in sword dancing and mumming, which sometimes included mock killings; surely this reflected ancient sacrifices, faded to rude play acting?
- The common and consistent point is that they took a selection of historic performance practices - morris dances and sword dances, mumming, and others in England - and declared them to be the survivals of ancient sacrificial rituals.
- It's an old tradition, which, along with wassailing and mumming, we have performed over the years in and around Skipton, and many people, especially those young in heart, enjoy the music and dance in which all are invited to participate.
- The Camloch Mummers have been invited to the festival this year, and responses to a questionnaire on the mumming or rhymers tradition are asked for.
- The section on popular masking proceeds through chapters on early masking, carnival, and mumming, all of which pursue a contextual approach to these forms.
- He and others argued that English morris dancing and sword dancing, and mumming, were closely linked, and in fact represented the surviving fragments of a once-united, pan-European sacrificial ritual.
- An essential part of the mumming tradition was audience participation, with the crowd hissing the dragon and cheering St George to victory, and that's probably where we get our robust pantomime backchat these days.
- The mummers wore oversized, wire-constructed costumes and carried little umbrellas as they mummed along.
- He was the first to draw scholarly attention to the custom of Christmas mumming in Newfoundland and its accompanying traditional drama, as evidenced in the standard work on the subject, Christmas Mumming in Newfoundland.
Origin Late Middle English: compare with mum and Middle Low German mummen. |