mirate

present singular third person mirates · participle present mirating · participle past mirated · past mirated

1. Southern USuncommonTo marvel at.First known use since the late 1800s

   That paper-doll mother was still mirating at her own flesh and blood having lice. Rosacoke smiled and thought, "That is the one funny thing since Heywood Betts and his Honolulu shirt."

   1999, Reynolds Price, A Singular Family: Rosacoke and Her Kin, →ISBN, page 312

   2 more examples

   With Bud in her arms and Babe at her heels, she rushed from one part of the court to another, laughing boisterously at Paulo's monkey pranks, and "mirating" over Francesca's tawdry finery.

   1893, M.E.M. Davis, “Judy's Mardi Gras”, in Wide Awake

   I should have sensed the waves of embarrassment she was radiating. But I didn't. I went right on “mirating” till I finally got around to saying they were “lovely.” Well, that was all my wife could take. “You've said enough,” she remarked, drily.

   1960, “My Affair with a Weekly”, in The North Carolina Miscellany, published 2012, →ISBN, page 209