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Mopery () is a vague, informal name for minor offenses. The word is based on the verb to , which originally meant "to wander aimlessly"; it only later acquired the sense "to be bored and depressed". The word mope appears to have first been used in the 16th century, and appears in William Shakespeare's works. It has occasionally been put into use by police as a charge to bring when no other legitimate charge seems appropriate. It has also been used for satiric or comedic effect in books and films.
The word mopery has been used by authors Thomas Pynchon (Gravity's Rainbow) and Dashiell Hammett (The Thin Man), among others, for whom it is usually a comic accent. In Catch-22 (Joseph Heller, 1961), the mildly rebellious Cadet Clevinger is by three angry officers, who accuse him of "breaking ranks while in formation, felonious assault, indiscriminate behavior, mopery, Treason, provoking, being a , listening to classical music, and so on". Similarly, in the 1984 comedy film, Revenge of the Nerds, mopery is defined as "exposing yourself to a blind person". Dudley "Booger" Dawson quotes at the IMDb According to Russell Baker, "mopery isn't a crime, but only an old policemen's joke in which it's defined as the act of displaying yourself in the nude to a blind person."
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