mummer

plural mummers

1. A person who dons a disguising costume, as for a parade or a festival.
2. An actor in a pantomime; one who communicates entirely through gesture and facial expression.

   [To] perform as mummers, who act in relays of eight, at the worship of ancestors.

   1883, Adele Marion Fielde, “舞 (bú)”, in A pronouncing and defining dictionary of the Swatow dialect, arranged according to syllables and tones, Shanghai: American Presbyterian Mission Press, page 16

   Synonyms: mime

present singular third person mummers · participle present mummering · participle past mummered · past mummered

1. Synonym of mum (“to act in pantomime or dumb show”).

   There is a general agreement that niggering [blackface performance] took over from mummering to keep up the old custom.

   1976, Cake and Cockhorse, volume 7, page 220

   1 more example

   We mummered taverns and restaurants and the airport (the dead man went round and round on the luggage carousel). We mummered Portuguese fishing trawlers in the harbour, where the show worked despite the language barrier, […]

   1988, Chris Brookes, Memorial University of Newfoundland. Institute of Social and Economic Research, A Public Nuisance: A History of the Mummers Troupe (page 53)

   Synonyms: mum