mope
/moʊp/
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 2.25 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To carry oneself in a depressed, lackadaisical manner; to give oneself up to low spirits; to pout, sulk.
Intransitive verb
noun
A bottom feeder who "mopes" around a pornography studio hoping for his big break and often does bit parts in exchange for room and board and meager pay.
Example Sentences
- "When she gets upset, she has a little mope, and then gets over it."
- "putting gulleries on some or other till they have made by their humouring or gulling ex stulto insanum, a mope or a noddy"
- "2011: LA Weekly, documenting uses dating to the 1990s The porn industry is many things. Subtle is not one of them. So when Porn Inc. went searching for a job title for people like Stephen Hill, the choice was "mope." It's based on the off-camera life of these fringe actors, hangers-on who mope around the studios hoping for a bit role, which if they're lucky might bring them $50 plus food — and the chance to have sex with a real, live woman.https://web.archive.org/web/20110310155324/http://www.laweekly.com/2011-02-24/news/porn-machete-murder/"
Etymology
Late Middle English (as a noun meaning "simpleton, fool"), probably related to mop (“young of an animal, moppet”). Alternatively, of North Germanic origin, related to Swedish mopa (“to sulk”), Danish måbe, themselves borrowed from Low German mopen (“to make faces, gape”), of uncertain ultimate origin, but compare Proto-West Germanic *mauwu (“protruding lip, pout”). Compare also German muffen, French moue.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: -, mopen, *mauwu
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /moʊp/
- British English: /məʊp/