mouse

Etymology

From Middle English mous, from Old English mūs, from Proto-West Germanic *mūs, from Proto-Germanic *mūs, from Proto-Indo-European *muh₂s. 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".

noun

1. Any small rodent of the genus Mus.
2. (informal) A member of the many small rodent and marsupial species resembling such a rodent.
3. A quiet or shy person.
4. (computing) (plural mice or, rarely, mouses) 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.
5. (computing) The cursor.
   move the mouse over the icon
6. (boxing) A facial hematoma or black eye.
7. (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.
8. (obsolete) A familiar term of endearment.
   Let the bloat King tempt you again to bed, / Pinch wanton on your cheek, call you his mouse c. 1599–1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, act 3, scene 4
9. A match used in firing guns or blasting.
10. (set theory) A small model of (a fragment of) Zermelo-Fraenkel set theory with desirable properties (depending on the context).
11. (historical) A small cushion for a woman's hair.
12. Part of a hind leg of beef, next to the round.

verb

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.
   I had just moused to the File menu and the pull-down menu repeated the menu bar's hue a dozen shades lighter. 1988, MacUser, volume 4
   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. 2009, Daniel Tunkelang, Faceted Search, page 35
5. (obsolete, nonce word, transitive) To tear, as a cat devours a mouse.