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Origin and history of mope

mope(v.)

1560s, "to move and act unconsciously;" 1580s, "to be listless and apathetic," the sound of the word perhaps somehow suggestive of low feelings (compare mop (v.) "make a wry mouth" (1560s); Low German mopen "to sulk," Dutch moppen "to grumble, to grouse," Danish maabe, dialectal Swedish mopa "to mope"). Related: Moped; moping; mopey; mopish.

also from 1560s

Entries linking to mope

sulky(adj.)

"quietly sullen, silently resentful, moody and aloof, disposed to repel friendly advances," 1744, a word of uncertain origin. There is no record of it in Middle English. Connection has been suggested to the obsolete adjective sulke "hard to sell" (1630s) and to Old English asolcen "idle, lazy, slow."

This is a past-participle adjective from aseolcan "become sluggish, be weak or idle" (related to besylcan "be languid"), from Proto-Germanic *seklan (source also of Middle High German selken "to drop, fall").

But words of meaning similar to sulky often are held to be imitative (compare miff, mope, pout, boudoir). Related: Sulkily; sulkiness.

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    Trends of mope

    adapted from books.google.com/ngrams/ with a 7-year moving average; ngrams are probably unreliable.

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    dote
    Century Dictionary and OED compare Dutch dutten "take a nap; mope;" Icelandic dotta "to nod, sleep;" Middle High German totzen...
    loafer
    "idler, person who loafs," 1830, of uncertain origin, often regarded as a shortened variant of land loper (1795), a partial loan-translation of German Landläufer "vagabond," from Land "land" + Läufer "runner," from laufen "to run" (see leap (v.)). But OED finds this connection "n
    be
    Old English beon, beom, bion "be, exist, come to be, become, happen," from Proto-Germanic *biju- "I am, I will be." This "b-root" is from PIE root *bheue- "to be, exist, grow," and in addition to the words in English it yielded the German present first and second person singular
    move
    late 13c., meven, in various senses (see below), from Anglo-French mover, Old French movoir "to move, get moving, set out; set in motion; introduce" (Modern French mouvoir), from Latin movere "move, set in motion; remove; disturb" (past participle motus, frequentative motare), fr
    mop
    late 15c., mappe "bundle of coarse yarn, cloth, etc., fastened to the end of a stick for cleaning or spreading pitch on a ship's decks," perhaps from Walloon (French) mappe "napkin," from Latin mappa "napkin" (see map (n.)). Modern spelling by 1660s. General sense, of such an imp
    moon
    "heavenly body which revolves about the earth monthly," Middle English mone, from Old English mona, from Proto-Germanic *menon- (source also of Old Saxon and Old High German mano, Old Frisian mona, Old Norse mani, Danish maane, Dutch maan, German Mond, Gothic mena "moon"), from P
    around
    c. 1300, "in circumference, in a circle, on every side," from phrase on round; see a- (1) + round (adj.). It was rare before 1600. In the sense of "here and there with no fixed direction" it is attested from 1776 in American English (British English prefers about). As a prepositi
    about
    Middle English aboute, from Old English abutan (adv., prep.), earlier onbutan "on the outside of; around the circumference of, enveloping; in the vicinity of, near; hither and thither, from place to place," also "with a rotating or spinning motion," in late Old English "near in t

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