mumps

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a contagious viral illness, especially of children, that causes fever and painful swelling of the salivary glands

   Vaccination has made mumps far less common in many countries.

2. 2
   noun

   an archaic term for a fit of sulkiness or gloomy silence

   The child sat in the mumps after being told that the outing was cancelled.

Recorded as a disease name in the seventeenth century, from mump, "to grimace or sulk." The name probably refers to the swollen face and painful movement of the jaw caused by the illness. The word is conventionally treated as singular despite its final -s.

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