mousse

Etymology

From French mousse (“foam, froth”), from Old French mosse (“moss”), from Frankish or Old Dutch *mosa (“moss”), from Proto-Germanic *musą (“moss, bog, marsh”). More at moss.

noun

1. An airy pudding served chilled, particularly chocolate mousse.
2. A savory dish, of meat or seafood, containing gelatin.
   ham mousse
3. A styling cream used for hair.
   He slicked his hair back with mousse, but the cowlick still stuck up.
4. A stable emulsion of water and oil that is created by wave action churning the water where an oil spill occurs.
   Pretreatment of oil or sea water with dispersants or demulsifiers generally inhibits laboratory mousse formation with most of the oils and petroleum products tested (Berridge et al. , 1968b; Bridie et al. , 1980a,b). 1987, D.F. Boesch, N.N. Rabalais, Long-term Environmental Effects of Offshore Oil and Gas Development
   A number of investigators have shown that the starting composition of a parent oil can have a major influence on its predisposittion to form stable water-in-oil emulsions (mousse). For example, the presence of natural surfactants in the wax, resin, and asphaltene fractions of oils has been positively correlated with the tendency to form mousse. 1993, John R. Clayton, James R. Payne, John S. Farlow, Oil Spill Dispersants: Mechanisms of Action and Laboratory Tests, page 21
   When it washed ashore in Prince William Sound, the crude came in sticky gobs, in tar balls, in what they called mousse, crude whipped to a froth in the action of the sea. 1994, Dana Stabenow, A Cold-Blooded Business, page 50
   However, the sticky mousse clogged all of the skimmers, even the Vaydaghubsky. If all these skimmers had been on-site during the first three days of calm weather, before the oil was churned into mousse, they could have made a real difference 2009, Elspeth Leacock, The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, page 37

verb

1. To apply mousse (styling cream).
   He moussed his hair in the morning and then washed it out at night.