Mumps
//mʌmps// name, noun, verb
name, noun, verb ·Moderate ·High school level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 A contagious disease caused by the Mumps virus of the genus Rubulavirus, mostly occurring in childhood, which causes swelling of glands in the face and neck. plural, plural-only
"At issue is the so-called MMR vaccine, which immunizes children against measles, mumps and rubella, three potentially deadly diseases that were once common and have been mostly wiped out."
- 2 plural of mump form-of, plural
- 3 an acute contagious viral disease characterized by fever and by swelling of the parotid glands wordnet
- 4 A gloomy or sullen silence. dated, plural, plural-only
Verb
- 1 third-person singular simple present indicative of mump form-of, indicative, present, singular, third-person
Proper Noun
- 1 Acronym of Massachusetts General Hospital Utility Multi-Programming System, a programming language (and database) developed originally to be specifically for hierarchically arranged records, such as medical records. abbreviation, acronym, alt-of
Example
More examples"I'm afraid she may have the mumps."
Etymology
Circa 1600, from mump (“grimace”, noun), compare mump (verb), most likely referring to the painful difficulty in swallowing.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.