December 15, 2002, 08:14
KallehMome
MomeHas anyone heard of this word? I found it in my Novobatzky & Shea book, and it is defined as: "a nitpicking critic". I love that definition and was going to use it to describe CJ in that thread about places that start and end with "a".
However, I then looked it up on onelook.com and found that all the entries in fact defined it as a "blockhead or fool" from the Greek God of censure and mockery; or a "dull, silent person". Yet my book says that it is an Anglicized form of
Momus, the Greek God of ridicule.

December 15, 2002, 11:58
arnieI've only seen it before in Lewis Carroll's
Jabberwocky:
...
the mome raths outgrabe...December 15, 2002, 15:37
shufitzI too had only heard the use arnie cites. but On checking, i found in Brewer's
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898), on bartelby,
"Mome (French), says Cotgrave, is a Momus, find-fault, carping fellow. So called from Momus, the god of raillery."