Word.ws English Dictionary

Mayhem Parva

Syllables: May·hem Par·vaUK/ˌmeɪhɛm ˈpɑːvə/US/ˌmeɪˌ(h)ɛm ˈpɑɹvə/

Mayhem Parva proper noun: the archetypical sleepy English village that is the setting for a violent crime, as depicted in many works of detective fiction.

Proper noun

Mayhem Parva

  1. (attributive, often) The archetypical sleepy English village that is the setting for a violent crime, as depicted in many works of detective fiction.

Noun

Mayhem Parva (uncountable)

  1. The genre of detective fiction in which violent crimes occur in sleepy English villages.

Origin of Mayhem Parva

From mayhem (noun) + Latin parva (the feminine singular form of parvus (“little”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂w- (“few, little; smallness”)), referring to village names in England such as Ashby Parva and Glen Parva. The term was coined by the British writer of detective fiction Colin Watson (1920–1983), referring to the works of the English author Agatha Christie (1890–1976).

Words that rhyme with Mayhem Parva

Questions about Mayhem Parva

What does Mayhem Parva mean?
Mayhem Parva means the archetypical sleepy English village that is the setting for a violent crime, as depicted in many works of detective fiction.
What part of speech is Mayhem Parva?
Mayhem Parva can be a proper noun or a noun.
How do you pronounce Mayhem Parva?
Mayhem Parva is pronounced /ˌmeɪhɛm ˈpɑːvə/ (UK).

Words near Mayhem Parva in the dictionary

  1. mayhappen
  2. mayhaps
  3. mayhaw
  4. mayhaws
  5. mayhem
  6. Mayhem Parva
  7. mayhemed
  8. mayhemic
  9. mayheming
  10. mayhemist
  11. mayhemists

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Mayhem Parva (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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