Word.ws English Dictionary

mamihlapinatapai

mamihlapinatapai noun: a situation in which all participants want something to be done, but none want to do it.

Noun

mamihlapinatapai (uncountable)

  1. A situation in which all participants want something to be done, but none want to do it.
    • By contrast, if that same face looks away from us, the activity in this area diminishes, lire heightened dopamine activity is not rooted in the attractiveness of the gazer per se, but in the potential for interaction signaled by eye contact, mamihlapinatapei.2008, Jennifer Ackerman, Sex Sleep Eat Drink Dream: A Day in the Life of Your Body
    • The Volunteer's Dilemma, or mamihlapinatapai, is a game of Chicken with many participants.2008, Len Fisher, Rock, Paper, Scissors: Game Theory in Everyday Life, page 77

Examples of mamihlapinatapai in a sentence

  • As two people stand at a doorway each gesturing 'After you', that is mamihlapinatapai.2012, Mark Forsyth, The Horologicon: A Day's Jaunt through the Lost Words of the English language:
  • And there was that word; Mamihlapinatapai2013, V. S. Atbay, Epiphany - A Collection of Poems:

Origin of mamihlapinatapai

From a Yámana word mamihlapinatapai, which The Guinness Book of Records listed as the "most succinct word," defining it as "looking at each other hoping that either will offer to do something which both parties desire but are unwilling to do." The word is a regularly-derived form of the verb ihlvpi /iɬəpi/, meaning "to feel awkward" or "to be at a loss for what to do": ma[m]- refl/recp + ihlvpi + :n[a]- stative + -at[a]- caus + -a:pai du. Its literal meaning is therefore roughly "to make each other both feel awkward".

Questions about mamihlapinatapai

What does mamihlapinatapai mean?
Mamihlapinatapai means a situation in which all participants want something to be done, but none want to do it.
How do you use mamihlapinatapai in a sentence?
As two people stand at a doorway each gesturing 'After you', that is mamihlapinatapai.
What part of speech is mamihlapinatapai?
Mamihlapinatapai is a noun.

Words near mamihlapinatapai in the dictionary

  1. mamie
  2. Mamie pink
  3. Mamie Taylor
  4. Mamie Taylors
  5. mamies
  6. mamihlapinatapai
  7. mamiji
  8. mamijis
  9. Mamiko
  10. Mamikonyan
  11. Mamikonyans

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mamihlapinatapai (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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