A body of a human being or animal that has been ceremonially preserved by removal of the internal organs, treatment with natron and resin, and wrapping in bandages, especially as practiced in ancient Egypt.

The museum displayed a mummy that was over 3,000 years old.

A withered or shrunken living being or thing resembling a mummy.

The old tree stood in the field like a mummy, its branches bare and lifeless.

Informal, chiefly British. One’s mother.

Mummy said I can stay up late tonight.

Historical. A medicinal preparation or artists’ pigment made from powdered or shredded mummy tissue, once believed to have curative properties and used to produce a brown paint known as ‘mummy brown’.

In the Renaissance, apothecaries sold ground mummy as a remedy, and painters mixed it into oils to create the colour called mummy brown.

mummyverb

To preserve (a body) by embalming and wrapping in cloth so as to create a mummy; to mummify.

The priests mummied the pharaoh’s body according to sacred rituals.

Figurative. To wrap or cover completely so as to resemble a mummy.

She was mummied in blankets to keep out the cold.

mummyadjective

Relating to or characteristic of a mummy or mummies; used attributively before a noun.

The archaeologists removed the mummy wrappings with extreme care.

Resembling a mummy; desiccated, shrivelled, or lifeless in appearance.

After weeks in the desert sun, the carcass looked positively mummy.