muller
UK /ˈmʌlə/ · US /ˈmʌləɹ/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms mullers mullering mullered Mueller
- noun A person who mulls wine or other alcoholic beverages.
- noun A vessel in which wine, etc., is mulled over a fire.
- noun (metallurgy) A machine that mixes clay and sand under a roller for use in preparing a mould for metal casting.
- noun (chiefly art, pharmacy) A stone with a flat grinding surface, which is held in the hand and rubbed on a slab to grind paint pigments, medicinal powders, etc.
- noun (by extension) A device used for crushing or grinding.
- verb (transitive, obsolete, rare, colloquial) To grind up (something) into, or as if into, powder.
- verb To destroy (something); to ruin, to wreck.
- verb To beat or thrash (someone).
- verb (often sports) To utterly defeat or outplay (a sportsperson, a team, etc.); to destroy, to thrash, to trounce.
- verb (transitive, obsolete) To cut down or reduce the height of (a top hat).
- proper noun A surname from German [in turn originating as an occupation].
Synonyms
sand muller outclass Paul Hermann Muller Karl Alex Muller Johannes Peter Muller Johann Muller Regiomontanus Max Muller Friedrich Max Muller Hermann Joseph Muller muser ponderer ruminator pestle pounder
Etymology
From mull (“to heat and spice, etc.”, verb) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns).
From mull (“to mix (clay and sand) under a roller to prepare a mould”) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns). Mull is possibly derived from mull (“(chiefly Northern England) to grind to powder, crumble, powder, pulverize”), from Middle English mollen, mullen (“to moisten (something); to soften (something) by making wet; to become liquid; to drizzle; to crumble or soften (something) by grinding; to fondle or pet (something)”), from Old French moillier, muillier (“to make wet”) (modern French mouiller), and from its etymon Vulgar Latin *molliāre, *mulliāre (“to make wet”), from Latin molliāre, the present active infinitive of molliō (“to soften”), from Latin mollis (“soft”) (ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *(s)meld- (“to melt; to soften”) or *melh₂- (“to crush, grind”)) + -iō (suffix forming factitive verbs from adjectives).
The noun is derived from Late Middle English molour, moler; further origin uncertain, possibly:
* from mull (“(Northern England) something reduced to fine particles”, noun) or mull (“(chiefly Northern England) to grind to powder, crumble, powder, pulverize”, verb) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns) (see etymology 2); or
* from an unattested Anglo-Norman or Middle French noun, from Old French moldre, moudre (“to grind”) (modern French moudre), from Latin molere, the present active infinitive of molō (“to grind, to mill”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- (“to crush, grind”); or
* a variant of mullet (“(obsolete) stone for grinding”) + -er; mullet is derived from French molette (“pestle”).
The verb is derived from the noun.
Probably from Angloromani mul-, the preterite stem of mer- (“to die”) (compare mullered, mullo (“dead”, adjective); ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *mer- (“to die; to disappear”)) + English -er (suffix forming frequentative verbs).
Webster’s 1913
- noun One who, or that which, mulls.
- noun A vessel in which wine, etc., is mulled over a fire.
- noun A stone or thick lump of glass, or kind of pestle, flat at the bottom, used for grinding pigments or drugs, etc., upon a slab of similar material.
Etymology [OE. mullen to pulverize, bruise; cf. Icel. mylja; prob. akin to E. mold soil. See Mold soil, and cf. Mull dirt.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “muller”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details