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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

mongrel.

Anything of mixed kind.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈmʌŋ.ɡɹəl/Canada, Received-Pronunciation/ˈmɑŋ.ɡɹəl/US/ˈmʌŋ.ɡɹəl/US/ˈmɐŋ.ɡɹəl/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. Anything of mixed kind. A dog with a lineage of two or more breeds.

    derogatory · often
    That dog is a mongrel; who knows what breed it could be!
  2. Anything of mixed kind. A person of mixed race.

    derogatory · ethnic · offensive · often · slur
  3. A thuggish, obnoxious, or contemptible person; (often preceded by "poor") a pitiable person.

    Commonwealth · Ireland · UK · slang
  4. An erect penis; an erection.

    Australia · slang
Where this word comes from

From Middle English mongrel, equivalent to mong (“mixture”) + -rel (pejorative diminutive); from Old English ġemang (“mingling”) (whence Modern English among), from Proto-Germanic *mang- (“mix; mixture”).

adj/ˈmʌŋ.ɡɹəl/Canada, Received-Pronunciation/ˈmɑŋ.ɡɹəl/US/ˈmʌŋ.ɡɹəl/US/ˈmɐŋ.ɡɹəl/Australia, New-Zealand
  1. Of mixed breed, nature, or origin; of or like a mongrel.

    not-comparable
    English spelling is often regarded as confusing and unpredictable due to the mongrel nature of that language.
    a mongrel dog
Where this word comes from

From Middle English mongrel, equivalent to mong (“mixture”) + -rel (pejorative diminutive); from Old English ġemang (“mingling”) (whence Modern English among), from Proto-Germanic *mang- (“mix; mixture”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.