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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

mouse.

Any mammal of the many rodent families (especially Muridae) that have a small body and a long tail.

5 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/maʊs/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/mʌʊs/Canada
  1. Any mammal of the many rodent families (especially Muridae) that have a small body and a long tail.

    broadly
  2. Any mammal of the many rodent families (especially Muridae) that have a small body and a long tail. Such a rodent that is of the genus Mus.

    broadly
  3. Any mammal of the many rodent families (especially Muridae) that have a small body and a long tail. A quiet or shy person.

    broadly · figuratively
    She's probably hiding in her room, she always does when we have company. She's our little mouse.
  4. Any mammal of the many rodent families (especially Muridae) that have a small body and a long tail. A familiar term of endearment.

    broadly · figuratively · obsolete
  5. 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.
  6. 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. An on-screen pointer controlled by a mouse device.

    broadly
    Move the mouse over the icon.
  7. A facial hematoma or black eye.

  8. 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.

  9. A match used in firing guns or blasting.

  10. A small model of (a fragment of) Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with desirable properties (depending on the context).

  11. A small cushion for a woman's hair.

    historical
  12. Part of a hind leg of beef, next to the round.

Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *múHs Proto-Germanic *mūs Proto-West Germanic *mūs Old English mūs Middle English mous English mouse Inherited from Middle English mous, from Old English mūs, from Proto-West Germanic *mūs, from Proto-Germanic *mūs, from Proto-Indo-European *múHs. Cognates 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.

verb/maʊs/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/maʊz/General-American, Received-Pronunciation/mʌʊs/Canada/maʊz/Canada
  1. To move cautiously or furtively, in the manner of a mouse (the rodent) (frequently used in the phrasal verb to mouse around).

    intransitive
  2. To hunt or catch mice (the rodents), usually of cats.

    intransitive
  3. To close the mouth of a hook by a careful binding of marline or wire.

    transitive
    Captain Higgins moused the hook with a bit of marline to prevent the block beckets from falling out under slack.
  4. To navigate by means of a computer mouse.

    intransitive
  5. To tear, as a cat devours a mouse.

    nonce-word · obsolete · transitive
Where this word comes from

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *múHs Proto-Germanic *mūs Proto-West Germanic *mūs Old English mūs Middle English mous English mouse Inherited from Middle English mous, from Old English mūs, from Proto-West Germanic *mūs, from Proto-Germanic *mūs, from Proto-Indo-European *múHs. Cognates 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.

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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.