mouse
Meanings
- Any of many rodent families (especially Muridae) that have a small body and a long tail.
- Such a rodent that is of the genus Mus.
- A quiet or shy person.
- 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.
- A pointer.
- A facial hematoma or black eye.
- 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.
- A familiar term of endearment.
- A match used in firing guns or blasting.
- A small model of (a fragment of) Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with desirable properties (depending on the context).
- A small cushion for a woman's hair.
- Part of a hind leg of beef, next to the round.
- To move cautiously or furtively, in the manner of a mouse (the rodent) (frequently used in the phrasal verb to mouse around).
- To hunt or catch mice (the rodents), usually of cats.
- To close the mouth of a hook by a careful binding of marline or wire.
- To navigate by means of a computer mouse.
- To tear, as a cat devours a mouse.
- The Walt Disney Company.
- A surname from German.
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
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, Icelandic and Faroese 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.