Muckamuck
noun, slang ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A person in a position of power or authority, or of high status. colloquial, countable, derogatory, sometimes
"I think it was the Fourth of July when they took the chair from under my ass again. Not a word of warning. One of the big muck-a-mucks from the other side of the water had decided to make economies; […]"
- 2 Food. US, dated, dialectal, possibly, uncountable
"She apparently has her own way in everything now, the old chief being quite satisfied to get his rations of muckamuck and tobacco without troubling himself as to how it is provided."
Example
More examples"I think it was the Fourth of July when they took the chair from under my ass again. Not a word of warning. One of the big muck-a-mucks from the other side of the water had decided to make economies; […]"
Etymology
Borrowed from Chinook Jargon muckamuck (“food”). In the sense of person of authority, it is short for high muckamuck, from Chinook Jargon hayo muckamuck (“plenty to eat, plenty of food; to eat”). See muckety muck. The ultimate source of the word is unclear; it is possible that the term originated within Chinook Jargon itself, rather than being borrowed from another language.
More for "muckamuck"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.