Mawworm

Mawworm

See also: mawworm, maw-worm, and maw worm

English

Etymology

The name of a character in the play The Hypocrite (1768) by Isaac Bickerstaffe; from maw-worm.

Noun

Mawworm (plural Mawworms)

1. (now rare) A hypocrite.
   • 1853 - "Editor's letter box", Provincial Medical and Surgical Journal, vol.1 (new series), no.49, p.1090, 9 December 1853

     That there are a sufficient number of Mawworms and Cantwells in the profession, is abundantly proved by the number of signatures obtained to the petition against opening the Crystal Palace on Sundays.

   • 1862 - Punch, p.103, "Military mawwormism", 15 March 1862

     So, according to this Mawworm, it is not the play itself but its being acted publicly that is so pernicious.

   • 1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter II, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood and Sons, OCLC 948783829, book I, page 30:

     He felt that he had chosen the one who was in all respects the superior; and a man naturally likes to look forward to having the best. He would be the very Mawworm of bachelors who pretended not to expect it.

   • 1986 - The Ottawa Citizen, p.E8, 12 December 1986

     Troublemakers come in splendid variety - from the catamaran, or quarrelsome scold, to the solopsist, or self-absorbed, self-referential me addict; from the blateroon, or compulsive chatterbox, to the mawworm, or pious, mealy-mouthed hypocrite.

Related terms

• maw-worm

References

• OED 2nd edition 1989
• OED online 3rd edition 2010