mummy n.1

late 14c., mummie, "medicinal substance prepared from mummy tissue," from Medieval Latin mumia, which is perhaps from Greek moumia or directly from Arabic mumiyah "embalmed body," from Persian mumiya "asphalt," from mum "wax."

The sense evolution is from the old belief that Egyptian mummies were embalmed with asphalt, which was used medicinally in medieval times. Ancient mummies were harvested for asphalt they were thought to contain, and later merchants mummified executed criminals and other unclaimed bodies to supply the trade. Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi, traveling in Egypt circa A.D. 1300, reported buying three mummified heads filled with asphalt for half a dirham. This medicinal mummia or mummie also was used as a paint pigment into early 20c.

The sense of "dead human body embalmed and dried after the manner of the ancient Egyptians" is recorded in English from 1610s. Mummy wheat (1842), grown in Egypt and Ethiopia and once thought to be a distinct species, was said to have been cultivated from grains found in mummy-cases.

1784, a childish alteration of mammy. Alternative form mumsy attested by 1876.