Source : Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913)

Mumps \Mumps\, n. [Prov. E. mump to be sulky. Cf. {Mump},
   {Mumble}, and {Mum}.]
   1. pl. Sullenness; silent displeasure; the sulks. --Skinner.

   2. [Prob. so called from the patient's appearance.] (Med.) A
      specific infectious febrile disorder characterized by a
      nonsuppurative inflammation of the parotid glands;
      epidemic or infectious parotitis.

Source : WordNet®

mumps
     n : an acute contagious viral disease characterized by fever and
         by swelling of the parotid glands [syn: {epidemic
         parotitis}]

Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

MUMPS
     
         (Or "M") Massachusetts General Hospital Utility
        Multi-Programming System.
     
        A programming language with extensive tools for the support of
        {database management systems}.  MUMPS was originally used for
        medical records and is now widely used where multiple users
        access the same databases simultaneously, e.g. banks, stock
        exchanges, travel agencies, hospitals.
     
        Early MUMPS implementations for {PDP-11} and {IBM PC} were
        complete {operating systems}, as well as programming
        languages, but current-day implementations usually run under a
        normal host {operating system}.
     
        A MUMPS program hardly ever explicitly performs low-level
        operations such as opening a file - there are programming
        constructs in the language that will do so implicitly, and
        most MUMPS programmers are not even aware of the {operating
        system} activity that MUMPS performs.
     
        Syntactically MUMPS has only one data-type: strings.
        Semantically, the language has many data-types: text strings,
        {binary strings}, {floating point} values, {integer} values,
        {Boolean} values.  Interpretation of strings is done inside
        functions, or implicitly while applying mathematical
        {operators}.  Since many operations involve only moving data
        from one location to another, it is faster to just move
        uninterpreted strings.  Of course, when a value is used
        multiple times in the context of arithmetical operations,
        optimised implementations will typically save the numerical
        value of the string.
     
        MUMPS was designed for portability.  Currently, it is possible
        to share the same MUMPS database between radically different
        architectures, because all values are stored as text strings.
        The worst an implementation may have to do is swap pairs of
        bytes.  Such multi-CPU databases are actually in use, some
        offices share databases between {VAX}, {DEC Alpha}, {SUN},
        {IBM PC} and {HP} {workstations}.
     
        Versions of MUMPS are available on practically all {hardware},
        from the smallest ({IBM PC}, {Apple Macintosh}, {Acorn}
        {Archimedes}), to the largest {mainframe}.  MSM ({Micronetics
        Standard MUMPS}) runs on {IBM PC RT} and {R6000}; DSM (Digital
        Standard Mumps) on the {PDP-11}, {VAX}, {DEC Alpha}, and
        {Windows-NT}; {Datatree MUMPS} from {InterSystems} runs on
        {IBM PC}; and {MGlobal MUMPS} on the {Macintosh}.
        Multi-{platform} versions include {M/SQL}, available from
        {InterSystems}, {PFCS}  and {MSM}.
     
        {Greystone Technologies}' GT/M runs on {VAX} and {DEC Alpha}.
        This is a compiler whereas the others are {interpreters}.
        {GT/SQL} is their {SQL} pre-processor.
     
        ISO standard 11756 (1991).  ANSI standard: "MUMPS Language
        Standard", X11.1 (1977, 1984, 1990, 1995?).
     
        The MUMPS User's Group was the {M Technology Association}.
     
        {Usenet} newsgroups: {news:comp.lang.mumps}.
     
        (2003-06-04)