archimime

/ˈɑːkɪmaɪm/

Etymology

From Latin archimimus, from Ancient Greek ἀρχίμῖμος (arkhímîmos).

archimime means The chief jester or mimic who would imitate the dead person as part of ancient Roman funeral processions. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 78 out of 100.

Why this word is great

ARCHIMIME — [Noun] The chief jester or mimic in ancient Rome whose solemn duty was to impersonate the deceased during funeral processions. From Latin archimimus, from Ancient Greek ἀρχι- (arkhi-, "chief") and μῶμος (mîmos, "mime, imitator"). Unlike a mime, a practitioner of silent craft for diversion, or a jester, a courtly purveyor of wit, the archimime was a ritualist of death, a professional shadow charged with embodying absence. One envisions the tactile weight of a dead senator's toga on living shoulders, the unsettling warmth of breath animating another's remembered gestures, and the hollow echo of a general's boasts before the mourning crowd—a performance that made mortality a public spectacle, where to be remembered was first to be convincingly, and paradoxically, imitated.

noun

The chief jester or mimic who would imitate the dead person as part of ancient Roman funeral processions.“1658: The Archimime or Jester attending the Funerall train, and imitating the speeches, gesture, and manners of the deceased, was too light for such solemnities — Sir Thomas Browne, Urne-Burial (Penguin 2005, p. 37)”