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Mome

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https://wordcraft.infopop.cc/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/932607094/m/7426086281

December 15, 2002, 08:14
Kalleh
Mome
Mome
Has 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. confused
December 15, 2002, 11:58
arnie
I've only seen it before in Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky:
... the mome raths outgrabe...
December 15, 2002, 15:37
shufitz
I 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."