muumuu

plural muumuus · alternative moomoo · alternative moo-moo · alternative mumu · alternative muu-muu · alternative mu'umu'u

1. HawaiiA 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).

   I don't want to look like a weirdo. I'll just go with a muumuu.

   1995, Dan Greaney, “King-Size Homer” (09:46 from the start), in The Simpsons, season 7, episode 7, spoken by Homer Simpson (Dan Castellaneta)

   5 more examples

   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. M. I. Stevenson during 1887–88, to Her Sister, Jane Whyte Balfour, […], London: Methuen & Co. […], published 1903, →OCLC, page 70

   [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 Hawaiian Historical Society for the Year 1930: With Papers Read at the Annual Meeting February 10, 1931, Honolulu, Hi.: Hawaiian Printing Co. […], published 1931, →OCLC, page 46

   If you know someone who lives in the Islands, chances are your resident friend will have her own seamstress, probably a Japanese or Chinese-American housewife who does dressmaking on the side. […] Prices of dressmaking are extremely reasonable, probably not more than $4.00 for making a muumuu summer dress, or sunback dress.

   1952 November, “Fabric Shopping in Hawaii”, in Walter L. Doty, editor, Sunset: The Magazine of Western Living, volume 109, number 5, Menlo Park, Calif.: Lane Publishing Co., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 34, column 2

   Everybody fools somebody sometime—one way or another. But Abraham Lincoln said no one could fool all of the people all of the time. Well, I can. I can fool you even wearing a moo-moo.

   1980, John Patrick, “Masquerade”, in That’s Not My Father! Three One Act Plays, London; New York, N.Y.: Samuel French, →ISBN, page 58

   Short and zoftig, she [Sue Mengers] wore muumuus and rose-tinted, oversize glasses, was loud, abrasive, and very funny.

   1998, Peter Biskind, “The Moviegoer”, in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock’n’Roll Generation Saved Hollywood, New York, N.Y.: Simon & Schuster, →ISBN, page 132