- 1
A mummer is someone who acts in an old-style folk play, often at Christmas or other festivals in Britain and Ireland, usually in a costume or a mask. Dictionaries like to say the play has no words, and the name does sit next to mum, “keep quiet.” Though actually many traditional plays do have simple spoken lines and songs — the silent picture is tidier than the real custom. It is a rare, slightly old-fashioned word; most people meet it in or Christmas articles, not in daily talk.
英國傳統節慶扮戲的演員（假面戲那類，不是現代舞台劇演員）
組成mum (“silent, keep quiet”) + -er (the person who does it). Perhaps mixed with Old French momeor, “jester,” from mommer, “to wear a mask.” Old German and Dutch have similar words for masking and disguise.
原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，原文照列，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
mummernoun/ˈmʌm.ə(ɹ)/
- 1
A person who dons a disguising costume, as for a parade or a festival.
- 2
An actor in a pantomime; one who communicates entirely through gesture and facial expression.
- [To] perform as mummers, who act in relays of eight, at the worship of ancestors.
mummerverb/ˈmʌm.ə(ɹ)/
- 1
Synonym of mum (“to act in pantomime or dumb show”).
- There is a general agreement that niggering [blackface performance] took over from mummering to keep up the old custom.
- We mummered taverns and restaurants and the airport (the dead man went round and round on the luggage carousel). We mummered Portuguese fishing trawlers in the harbour, where the show worked despite the language barrier, […]
資料來源：英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary（CC BY-SA 4.0）。 原文照列，未經改寫。