• mugwump •
Printable Version Pronunciation: mêg-wêmp • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Noun
Meaning: 1. (Capitalized: Mugwump) A Republican who refused to support the party's presidential candidate, James G. Blaine, in 1884. 2. A person who switches political parties or an independent who disdains the politics of both parties. In other words, a person with his mug on one side of the fence and his wump on the other. 3. (A bit dated) A person who considers him- or herself above others out of a sense of self-importance, a bigwig, a kingpin, panjandrum.
Notes: Today's Good Word comes from a jovial family of words, including the nouns mugwumpism if you prefer formality or, if you prefer something a bit lighter, mugwumpery. People who behave like mugwumps are mugwumpish and behave mugwumpishly.
In Play: The disadvantage of being an independent in the US is that independents have no interesting name associated with them: we call them simply "independents". Well, here is the word to pull independents off that snag: "With the Democrats and Republicans almost evenly divided this year, the mugwumps are likely to decide the outcome of the presidential election."
Word History: Let us celebrate the Republican National Convention this week with a word it contributed to the English language in 1884 (see Meaning). Republicans borrowed this word from the original Americans, in this case from Massachusett, an Algonquian language originally spoken in the state named after it. In 1663, the Reverend John Eliot of Roxborough, Massachusetts, published a translation of the Bible into that language in an early American attempt to convert Native Americans to Christianity. In 1666 he published the first grammar of the language. In order to accomplish this feat, Eliot, of course, had to teach himself Massachusett. According to Eliot, the Massachusetts called their chief a mugquomp. Although the first published example of this word in English appeared only in 1828, there is ample reason to believe that it was used earlier as a sarcastically facetious term referring to American leaders from Europe.
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