Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a fool, a simpleton.

1550		Udall Ralph Roister Doister V ii: It was none but Roister Doister, that foolish mome.
1560		Nice Wanton Aii: I had rather be hanged were, Then I would syt quakyng like a mome for feare.
1568		Hist. of Jacob and Esau I i: No, that were in vaine: Alas, good simple mome.
1576		C. Aelian A registre of hystories n.p.: Milo in body was more then a mā, but in minde a very lout and a mome, and far worse then a woman.
a.1583		Flodden Field in Child Ballads vii 73: Away with this foolish mome .
1593		H. Smith Sermons 439: [T]hou art a mome, and a cowarde, and a foole, and [...] euerie man will [...] abuse thee.
1600		J. Day Blind Beggar of Bednall-Green Act II: I must keep company with none but a sort of Momes and Hoydens that know not chalk from cheese.
1609		Dekker Gul’s Horne-Booke 5: Growtnowles and Moames will in swarmes fly buzzing about thee.
1612		J. Taylor Laugh and Be Fat 15: That man may well be call’d an idle mome.
1622		J. Taylor ‘Brood of Cormorants’ in Works (1869) III 12: And so like Coles dog the vntutor’d mome, / Must neither goe to Church nor bide at home.
a.1658		‘Wooing of Robin & Joan’ in Ebsworth Roxburghe Ballads (1891) VII:2 310: ‘You must’ (Sir Clown) is for the king; / And not for such a mome.
1668		A. Brome ‘The Contented’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) 271: A stout tongued Lawyer is but a mome, / Compared to a stout file-leader.
1682		Mennis & Smith et al. ‘The West-Country Batchelors Complaint’ Wit and Drollery 92: Sir Clown, is for a King, / And not for zuch a Mome.
1719		in D’Urfey Pills to Purge Melancholy I 131: At this the Knight look’d like a Mome.