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mouse

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

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See also: mouše and Mouse

English

Alternative forms

Etymology

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 (Swedish mus, Danish mus, Norwegian mus, Icelandic mús, 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.

Pronunciation

Noun
Verb

Noun

mouse (plural mice or (computing) mouses)

  2. Any small rodent of the genus Mus.
    • 1892, Walter Besant, chapter II, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:
      At twilight in the summer there is never anybody to fear—man, woman, or cat—in the chambers and at that hour the mice come out. They do not eat parchment or foolscap or red tape, but they eat the luncheon crumbs.
    • 1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 158:
      A person smeared with the excrement of a mouse was rendered impotent, according to Pliny the Elder.
    • 2022 June 2, Sandee LaMotte, “The ‘Benjamin Button’ effect: Scientists can reverse aging in mice. The goal is to do the same for humans”, in CNN‎:
      In molecular biologist David Sinclair’s lab at Harvard Medical School, old mice are growing young again. […] After injecting the virus into the eye, the pluripotent genes were then switched on by feeding the mouse an antibiotic.
  3. (informal) A member of the many small rodent and marsupial species resembling mice, typically having a small body, dark fur, long tail, and nocturnal sleeping pattern compared to rats.
  4. A quiet or shy person.
  6. (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.
  7. (computing) A pointer.
    Move the mouse over the icon.
  8. (boxing) A facial hematoma or black eye.
  9. (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.
  10. (obsolete) A familiar term of endearment.
    • c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 3, scene 4:
      Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed, / Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse
  11. A match used in firing guns or blasting.
  12. (set theory) A small model of (a fragment of) Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with desirable properties (depending on the context).
  13. (historical) A small cushion for a woman's hair.
  14. Part of a hind leg of beef, next to the round.
    Synonym: mouse buttock

Hypernyms

Hyponyms

Coordinate terms

Derived terms

Terms derived from mouse (noun)

Descendants

Descendants

Translations

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Translations to be checked

Verb

mouse (third-person singular simple present mouses, present participle mousing, simple past and past participle moused)

  1. (intransitive) To move cautiously or furtively, in the manner of a mouse (the rodent) (frequently used in the phrasal verb to mouse around).
  2. (intransitive) To hunt or catch mice (the rodents), usually of cats. [from 12th c.]
  3. (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.
  4. (intransitive, computing) To navigate by means of a computer mouse.
    • 1988, MacUser, volume 4:
      I had just moused to the File menu and the pull-down menu repeated the menu bar's hue a dozen shades lighter.
    • 2009, Daniel Tunkelang, Faceted Search, page 35:
      Unlike the Flamenco work, the Relation Browser allows users to quickly explore a document space using dynamic queries issued by mousing over facet elements in the interface.
  5. (obsolete, nonce word, transitive) To tear, as a cat devours a mouse.

Derived terms

terms derived from mouse (verb)

Translations

Further reading

Anagrams

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Chinese

Etymology

From English mouse.

Pronunciation

Noun

mouse

  1. (Hong Kong Cantonese, computing) mouse (Classifier: 隻／只 c; 個／个 c)

Synonyms

Dialectal synonyms of 鼠標 (“computer mouse”) [map]
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Italian

Middle English

Portuguese

Romanian

Spanish

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