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mooch

 - 4 dictionary results

mooch

  [mooch] Slang.
–verb (used with object)
1. to borrow (a small item or amount) without intending to return or repay it.
2. to get or take without paying or at another's expense; sponge: He always mooches cigarettes.
3. to beg.
4. to steal.
–verb (used without object)
5. to skulk or sneak.
6. to loiter or wander about.
–noun
7. Also, moocher. a person who mooches.
Use mooch in a Sentence
Also, mouch.

Origin:
1425–75; late ME, appar. var. of ME michen < OF muchier to skulk, hide
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2010.
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mooch   (mōōch)   
v.   mooched, mooch·ing, mooch·es

v.   tr.

  1. To obtain or try to obtain by begging; cadge. See Synonyms at cadge.

  2. To steal; filch.

v.   intr.

  1. To get or try to get something free of charge; sponge: lived by mooching off friends.

  2. To wander about aimlessly.

  3. To skulk around; sneak.

n.  

  1. One who begs or cadges; a sponge.

  2. A dupe, as in a confidence game.


[Middle English mowchen, probably from Old French muchier, to hide, skulk.]
mooch'er n.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Slang Dictionary
mooch [mutʃ]

  1. tv. & in.
    to beg for money, liquor, or drugs in public places. : No mooching around here! Move along!
  2. n.
    a beggar. : I don't want to be a mooch, but could I borrow your lawn mower?
  3. n.
    narcotics. (Drugs. See also hooch.) : He's gonna have to work hard to get off the mooch.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Word Origin & History

mooch 
1440, "pretend poverty," from O.Fr. muchier "to hide, sulk, conceal," of uncertain origin, perhaps from Celt. or Gmc. Or the word may be a variant of M.E. mucchen "to hoard, be stingy" (1303), probably originally "to keep coins in one's nightcap," from mucche "nightcap," from M.Du. muste "cap, nightcap," ult. from M.L. almucia, of unknown origin. Sense of "sponge off others" first recorded 1857.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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