mouser

See also: Mouser

English

Etymology

From Middle English mousere (“a hunter of mice”), equivalent to mouse +‎ -er (agent noun suffix) or +‎ -er (occupational suffix). The “moustache” sense is apparently an extended usage (i.e., a cat’s whiskers, jocularly transferred to human beings), possibly with influence from moustache.^[1]

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈmaʊzə(ɹ)/, /ˈmaʊsə(ɹ)/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
Rhymes: -aʊzə(ɹ), -aʊsə(ɹ)

Noun

mouser (plural mousers)

A cat that catches mice, kept specifically for the purpose. [from 15th c.]
(chiefly Scotland, US) A moustache.
- 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 20:
  He was a pretty man, well upstanding, with great shoulders on him and his hair was fair and fine and he had a broad brow and a gey bit coulter of a nose and he twisted his mouser ends up with wax like that creature the German Kaiser […].

Related terms

Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office: the official resident cat at 10 Downing Street

Translations

cat that catches mice

Albanian: micë (sq) f
Catalan: rater, ratador
French: souricier (fr) m
Galician: murador (gl) m
Hungarian: egerész (hu)
Pennsylvania German: Mauskatz
Russian: мышелов (ru) (myšelov)
Serbo-Croatian: mišolovac (sh) m
Swedish: råttfångarkatt c
Volapük: (♂♀) mugamakat, (♂) mugamahikat, (♀) mugamajikat

References

^ “mouser”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.

Anagrams

-merous, moeurs, oremus

Middle English

Noun

mouser

Alternative form of mousere

Scots

Etymology

Apparently an extended usage of English mouser (“a cat”), hence a cat’s whiskers, jocularly transferred to human beings, possibly with influence from moustache.^[1]

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): [mʌusər]

Noun

mouser (plural mousers)

moustache
Synonym: moutash

References

^ “mouser”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.

[1] “mouser”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.

[2] “mouser”, in The Dictionary of the Scots Language, Edinburgh: Scottish Language Dictionaries, 2004–present, →OCLC, reproduced from W[illiam] Grant and D[avid] D. Murison, editors, The Scottish National Dictionary, Edinburgh: Scottish National Dictionary Association, 1931–1976, →OCLC.

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