mommick

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English

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Etymology

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Apparently a variant of mammock.

Verb

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mommick (third-person singular simple present mommicks, present participle mommicking, simple past and past participle mommicked)

  1. (dialectal, transitive, including Ocracoke Island North Carolina) To harass or bother (someone or something).
    • 1960, Vinnie Williams, Walk Egypt, page 178:
      The big woman wheeled on the tumbling children in the car. "Billie-Dove Newsome, min' you manners. Ramon-Novarro, quit mommicking de dog!" She turned back.
    • 2007, Wild Horses of Shackleford Banks, →ISBN:
      Using a bit of Down East vernacular, as if talking about a family member, she adds, “Leo's used to me mommicking [teasing] him—treating him like a baby.”
  2. (dialectal, transitive) To beat up or rough up (someone).
    • 1968, William Dean Howells, The Altrurian romances, volume 20, page 430:
      Evelith Strange writes to Mrs. Makely from Altruria: Do you still keep on murdering and divorcing, and drowning and burning, and mommicking, and maiming people by sea and land? Has there been any war since I left?
    • 1998, Cruelty to Animals and Interpersonal Violence: Readings, page 24:
      "Mommick him up good, because you've got to go to jail anyhow."
    • 2014, Richard Chase, American Folk Tales and Songs, →ISBN, page 21:
      "He was too mean for Hell, having people mommicked and gaumed up the way he did.”
    • about 1980, Connie McElroy, 'Twas a Night Afore Chistmas, Son: or A Harkers Island Christmas:
      I heard him hollar as he sank out of sight, "My Lord Honey, haint I been momicked this night."
  3. (dialectal, Appalachia, Southern US, chiefly North Carolina) To mess up; to bungle or ruin by bungling.
    • 1994, Gail Godwin, A Mother and Two Daughters, →ISBN, page 420:
      "I don't fault her for effort," said one man, the oldest at the table, "but she's wanting to do it all by herself, then she mommicks thing up."
    • 2009, Peter F. Hamilton, The Neutronium Alchemist, →ISBN:
      And anyway, his presence seemed to mommick up electricity. So he stuck to walking.

Alternative forms

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Noun

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mommick

  1. (dialectal, Appalachia, Southern US, chiefly North Carolina) A mess, a disorderly state or thing.
    • 2010, Julianna Baggott, The Madam: A Novel, →ISBN, page 21:
      As soon as she walks up the porch steps and opens the screen door, she knows that Henry is already home. Amid the noisy mommick, she can sense his humming presence.
    • 2012, Christine Blevins, The Turning of Anne Merrick, →ISBN:
      "It's all such an awful mommick..." Anne shrugged. "Trapped on a sinking ship..."
    • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:mommick.
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