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View synonyms for mouse

mouse

[ noun mous; verb mouz ]

noun

, plural mice [mahys].
  1. any of numerous small Old World rodents of the family Muridae, especially of the genus Mus, introduced widely in other parts of the world.
  2. any similar small animal of various rodent and marsupial families.
  3. a quiet, timid person.
  4. Computers. a palm-sized, button-operated pointing device that can be used to move, select, activate, and change items on a computer screen. Compare joystick ( def 2 ), stylus ( def 3 ).
  5. Informal. a swelling under the eye, caused by a blow or blows; black eye.
  6. Slang. a girl or woman.


verb (used with object)

, moused, mous·ing.
  1. to hunt out, as a cat hunts out mice.
  2. Nautical. to secure with a mousing.

verb (used without object)

, moused, mous·ing.
  1. to hunt for or catch mice.
  2. to prowl about, as if in search of something:

    The burglar moused about for valuables.

  3. to seek or search stealthily or watchfully, as if for prey.
  4. Computers. to use a mouse to move the cursor on a computer screen to any position.

mouse

noun

  1. any of numerous small long-tailed rodents of the families Muridae and Cricetidae that are similar to but smaller than rats See also fieldmouse harvest mouse house mouse murine
  2. any of various related rodents, such as the jumping mouse
  3. a quiet, timid, or cowardly person
  4. computing a hand-held device used to control the cursor movement and select computing functions without keying
  5. slang.
    a black eye
  6. nautical another word for mousing


verb

  1. to stalk and catch (mice)
  2. intr to go about stealthily
  3. tr nautical to secure (a hook) with mousing

mouse

/ mous /

, Plural mice mīs

  1. A hand-held input device that is moved about on a flat surface to direct the cursor on a computer screen. It also has buttons for activating computer functions. The underside of a mechanical mouse contains a rubber-coated ball that rotates as the mouse is moved; optical sensors detect the motion and move the screen pointer correspondingly. An optical mouse is cordless and uses reflections from an LED to track the mouse's movement over a special reflective mat which is marked with a grid that acts as a frame of reference.


mouse

  1. A common device that allows the user to reposition an arrow on their computer screen in order to activate desired applications. The term mouse comes from the appearance of the device, with the cord to the main computer being seen as a tail of sorts.


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Notes

The user usually sends signals to the computer when the user depresses or “clicks” a switch. A number of slang terms, such as “click on X” or “click and drag” have arisen from the appearance of symbols on a screen when a mouse is used.

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Derived Forms

  • ˈmouseˌlike, adjective

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Other Words From

  • mouselike adjective

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Word History and Origins

Origin of mouse1

before 900; Middle English mous (plural mis ), Old English mūs (plural mȳs ); cognate with German Maus, Old Norse mūs, Latin mūs, Greek mŷs

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Word History and Origins

Origin of mouse1

Old English mūs; compare Old Saxon mūs, German Maus, Old Norse mūs, Latin mūs, Greek mūs

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Idioms and Phrases

see play cat and mouse ; poor as a churchmouse ; quiet as a mouse . Also see under mice .

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Example Sentences

If acupuncture was provided after an LPS shock, then the mice showed even higher levels of inflammation.

Oatley has demonstrated his technique in mice but faces challenges with livestock.

Wang, who reported those results June 15 in Cell Research, says his team is now testing the compound in mice.

Further experiments found that disrupting the vCA1 cells when giving mice a shock disrupted the entire network—that is, the waves broke down and the mice forgot their fear.

Of course, it’s hard to ask a mouse if it actually smelled something, so the team took a roundabout approach.

He said he spent his time doing “Mickey Mouse make-work,” digging though old records for long-abandoned well sites.

So Western governments are caught in a cat-and-mouse game and at times it is unclear who is the cat and who the mouse.

Even the original score to the song labels the singing parts, “Mouse” (the woman) and “Wolf” (the man).

The episode was titled “Cat and Mouse” and it follows in the pattern of classic Serlingesque plot twists.

In the event, in the long cat and mouse game that Stalin played with him, the cat did not pounce.

And Mr. Meadow Mouse often remarked that it had more halls than any other dwelling he had ever seen.

Some of those halls that Mr. Meadow Mouse mentioned ran right out beneath the surface of the garden.

Mr. Meadow Mouse repeated, as if he wanted to be sure there was no misunderstanding about it.

Grandfather Mole demanded of Mr. Meadow Mouse, almost as soon as he had stepped just outside the shade of the toadstool.

And when he had made his promise to Mr. Meadow Mouse he had had no idea that it was going to rain so soon.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

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