The Complete Guide to 'Num Noms': Meaning, Slang Origins, and the Scented Collectible Brand

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Before plastic figures took over toy store aisles, "nom" belonged entirely to sound symbolism. English speakers long used "yum" or "num-num" as baby-talk syllables to encourage infants to swallow pureed peas. The modern phonetic repetition "om nom nom," however, trace directly to puppetry. When Cookie Monster devoured baked goods on Sesame Street, voice actor Frank Oz voiced frantic, guttural chomping sounds that phonetic transcripts immortalized as "om nom nom."

The phrase migrated into text during the dawn of visual web culture. Around 2007, the viral image board I Can Has Cheezburger? paired photographs of wide-eyed cats chewing on mundane objects with broken-English captions. "Nom nom nom" became the default subtitle for enthusiastic consumption. Lexicographers at the Oxford English Dictionary formally added "nom nom" to their database in 2015, defining it as an expression of acute gastronomic pleasure. Within digital communities, dropping the initial "o" created a rhythmic double beat: "num noms" or "nom noms" became an informal noun referring to small, irresistible snacks.