Word.ws English Dictionary

muumuu

Syllables: muu·muu/ˈmuːmuː//ˈmuˌmu/

muumuu noun: a long, often calf-length, loose-fitting dress chiefly with short sleeves which is made of lightweight fabric printed with colourful, stylized Hawaiian themes (such as flowers and palm branches).

muumuu: a long, often calf-length, loose-fitting dress chiefly with short sleeves which is made of...
Image: Elise Terranova (imaginary_lines), CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

muumuu (plural muumuus)

  1. (Hawaii) A long, often calf-length, loose-fitting dress chiefly with short sleeves which is made of lightweight fabric printed with colourful, stylized Hawaiian themes (such as flowers and palm branches).
    • We have had some very hot weather since last I wrote. […] Fanny and Valentine have taken to mumus and holakus, but I am putting off as long as I can. So far I have been content to discard all woollen garments and stiff or fitted bodices, and I often wear boots without stockings.1888 July 15 (date written), M[argaret] I[sabella] Stevenson, “The Cruise of the ‘Casco’”, in Marie Clothilde Balfour, editor, From Saranac to the Marquesas and beyond: Being Letters Written by Mrs....
    • [W]e saw Ruth in a pink muumuu having a bath and finally getting into the "kahe" and catching the mullet herself, beheading, and enjoying the tid-bits that she found.1917 April 27 (date delivered), Josephine Wundenberg King, “Reminiscences of Hanalei, Kauai […] (Read before the Kauai Historical Society April 27, 1917)”, in Thirty-ninth Annual Report of the...

Forms of muumuu

pluralmuumuus
alternative formmoomoo
alternative formmoo-moo
alternative formmumu
alternative formmuu-muu
alternative formmu'umu'u

Origin of muumuu

Borrowed from Hawaiian muʻumuʻu, from muʻumuʻu (“to be cut off; to be shortened”, verb), probably because the garment is a short-sleeved and often calf-length version of the floor-length holoku or Mother Hubbard dress which has long sleeves and originally a train.

Words formed from muumuu

Questions about muumuu

What does muumuu mean?
Muumuu means a long, often calf-length, loose-fitting dress chiefly with short sleeves which is made of lightweight fabric printed with colourful, stylized Hawaiian themes (such as flowers and palm branches).
What part of speech is muumuu?
Muumuu is a noun.
How do you pronounce muumuu?
Muumuu is pronounced /ˈmuːmuː/ (UK).
What is the plural of muumuu?
The plural of muumuu is muumuus.

Words near muumuu in the dictionary

  1. Mutzes
  2. muu-muu
  3. muu-muus
  4. muufo
  5. muufos
  6. muumuu
  7. muumuued
  8. muumuus
  9. Muumyangan
  10. muurkas
  11. MUV

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: muumuu (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-muumuu.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-muumuu.wav.

Cite this entry: “muumuu.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/muumuu. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.