There is something exceedingly unpleasant in being obliged to answer "No," to a traveller's "Pray, Sir, were you ever abroad?" and to sit mum-chance all the time that he is running over the "grimoire" of outlandish technicalities. For my own part, I am convinced that man is, par excellence, a travelling animal; …

I wrote Miss Crane off as mediocre because although she chatted quite pleasantly and intelligently over coffee she was mostly mumpchance at the dinner table. Oh, not mumpchance tout court.

The two little children stood mumchance, but with a kindly air.

2001, Paula Marshall, Lord Hadleigh's Rebellion, Harlequin (Mills & Boon), 2008, page 124,
If he did, he would remain mumchance about that, too.

The Taker or the Verser is the man must play with him, the Cards are fetcht, Mumchance or Decoy is the game: the first wager is wine, the second two pence, from two pence they rise to a shilling, from that to a pound[…]

I'm not such a mumchance, to be sure, but I've as good a fortune

Mumchance

Meaning

Adj

Noun