mouse
/maʊs/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms mice mouses mousing moused mowse
- noun (loosely) Any mammal of the many rodent families (especially Muridae) that have a small body and a long tail.
- noun (strictly) Such a rodent that is of the genus Mus.
- noun (figurative) A quiet or shy person. “She's probably hiding in her room, she always does when we have company. She's our little mouse.”
- noun (figurative, obsolete) A familiar term of endearment.
- noun (computing) An input device that is moved over a pad or other flat surface to produce a corresponding movement of a pointer on a graphical display. “My mouse needs new batteries.”
- noun (computing, by extension) An on-screen pointer controlled by a mouse device. “Move the mouse over the icon.”
- noun (boxing) A facial hematoma or black eye.
- noun (nautical) A turn or lashing of spun yarn or small stuff, or a metallic clasp or fastening, uniting the point and shank of a hook to prevent its unhooking or straightening out.
- verb (intransitive) To move cautiously or furtively, in the manner of a mouse (the rodent) (frequently used in the phrasal verb to mouse around).
- verb (intransitive) To hunt or catch mice (the rodents), usually of cats. [from 12th c.]
- verb (transitive, nautical) To close the mouth of a hook by a careful binding of marline or wire. “Captain Higgins moused the hook with a bit of marline to prevent the block beckets from falling out under slack.”
- verb (intransitive, computing) To navigate by means of a computer mouse.
- verb (obsolete, nonce word, transitive) To tear, as a cat devours a mouse.
- proper noun (US, metonymic, uncountable, with "the") The Walt Disney Company.
- proper noun A surname from German.
Synonyms
murine murid vole mouse buttock shiner black eye computer mouse sneak creep pussyfoot
Etymology
Inherited from Middle English mous, from Old English mūs, from Proto-West Germanic *mūs, from Proto-Germanic *mūs, from Proto-Indo-European *múHs.
Germanic cognates include Old Frisian mūs, Old Saxon mūs (German Low German Muus), Dutch muis, Old High German mūs (German Maus), Old Norse mús (Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish mus, Faroese and Icelandic mús).
Indo-European cognates include Ancient Greek μῦς (mûs), Latin mūs, Spanish mur, Armenian մուկ (muk), Old Church Slavonic мꙑшь (myšĭ) (Russian мышь (myšʹ)), Albanian mi, Persian موش (muš), Northern Kurdish mişk, Sanskrit मूष् (mūṣ).
The computing sense was coined by American engineer Bill English in 1965 and first used publicly in a publication titled "Computer-Aided Display Control", in reference to the similarity with the animal.
The surname is sometimes an Americanized spelling of German Maus. The metonym for Disney comes from its icon Mickey Mouse.
Webster’s 1913
- noun Any one of numerous species of small rodents belonging to the genus Mus and various related genera of the family Muridæ. The common house mouse (Mus musculus) is found in nearly all countries. The American white-footed, or deer, mouse (Hesperomys leucopus) sometimes lives in houses. See Dormouse, Meadow mouse, under Meadow, and Harvest mouse, under Harvest.
- noun (a) A knob made on a rope with spun yarn or parceling to prevent a running eye from slipping.
- verb To watch for and catch mice.
- verb To watch for or pursue anything in a sly manner; to pry about, on the lookout for something.
Etymology [OE. mous, mus, AS. mus, pl. mys; akin to D. muis, G. maus, OHG. & Icel. mus, Dan. muus, Sw. mus, Russ. muishe, L. mus, Gr. my^s, Skr. mush mouse, mush to steal. *277. Cf. Muscle, Musk.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “mouse”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details