mule
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: hobbies
lifestyle
nautical
numismatics
sailing
transport
Etymology: Etymology tree
substratebor.?
Proto-Italic *musklos?
Latin mūlus
Proto-Indo-European *-h₂
Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂
Proto-Italic *-ā
Latin -a
Latin mūla
Anglo-Norman mulebor.
▲
Latin mūlusbor.
Proto-West Germanic *mūl
Old English mūl
Middle English mule
English mule
Inherited from Middle English mule, from Anglo-Norman mule (“she-mule”) and Old English mūl, both ultimately from Latin mūlus, from Proto-Indo-European *mukslós. Compare Late Latin muscellus (“young he-mule”), Old East Slavic мъшкъ (mŭškŭ, “mule”), Ancient Greek (Phocian) μυχλός (mukhlós, “he-ass”), and German Maul Maultier, Maulesel (through Latin).
Inflected forms:
form: mules
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: mules
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: muling
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: muled
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: muled
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: The generally sterile male or female hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.
pos: noun
examples: One day he ran into a herd of a half dozen elk, so he rode his mule down the canyon three or four miles, leaving the sheep alone.
gloss: The generally sterile hybrid offspring of any two species of animals.
pos: noun
examples: It would be exceedingly interesting to know if the hybrid would reproduce, a matter I deem exceedingly doubtful, for the chances are it would prove a "mule" (infertile).
gloss: A hybrid plant.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
examples: Vegetable mules supply an irrefragable argument in favour of the sexual system of botany.
The most extraordinary mule, however, that is asserted to have been produced on the Continent, is a cross between the cabbage and horse-radish, which Monsieur Sageret reports that he has obtained […]
gloss: A stubborn person.
pos: noun
tags: informal
examples: "Where in the hell do you think I learned to be such a mule?”
gloss: A person paid to smuggle drugs.
pos: noun
tags: slang
examples: Cocaine packet ingestion (these patients referred to as “mules”) may warrant surgery, Golytely or expectant passage.
“Yeah, in Denver, we know about Uriarte's involvement in meth. Our Las Cruces office seized over six hundred pounds of methamphetamine from two of his mules last year.”
gloss: A coin or medal minted with obverse and reverse designs not normally seen on the same piece, either intentionally or in error.
pos: noun
examples: What is less clear, however, is why mint workers should have chosen to produce mules, if they were making forgeries […]
gloss: A MMORPG character, or NPC companion in a tabletop RPG, used mainly to store extra inventory for the owner's primary character.
pos: noun
examples: He was in the middle of organizing his massive stash of rare and exquisite bounty, all kept safely in the inventory cache of a mule, an entirely separate character which he paid a monthly fee to maintain exclusively for that purpose.
gloss: Any of a group of cocktails involving ginger ale or ginger beer, citrus juice, and various liquors.
pos: noun
gloss: A kind of triangular sail for a yacht.
pos: noun
examples: In heavier seas where a boat must sail a course dictated by waves, or where wave action makes power more important than pointing, the mule will prove the faster sail.
gloss: A kind of cotton-spinning machine.
pos: noun
gloss: To smuggle (illegal drugs).
pos: verb
tags: slang
transitive
examples: There are many drug lords, each with his own corridor (think of it as a franchise of sorts) funneling narcotics into Texas. There are multifold methods of transport. The old, and still viable, way is to "mule" it across the Rio Grande in a small boat.
Thornton was supposed to mule it back to the States from one of the ports he stopped in, give it to Maxwell and Ames, and get the second half of a quarter-million.
Synonyms: Missouri canary
Related words: ass
donkey
hinny
horse
Derived words: credit mule
development mule
grin like a mule eating briars
HM mule
hung like a mule
kick like a mule
Missouri mule
money mule
Morgan's mule
Moscow mule
mule armadillo
muleback
mule bell
mule deer
mule fat
mule fern
mule kick
mule killer
muleless
mulelike
mule litter
mule-litter
mulelitter
muleload
muleman
mule pulley
Muleshoe
muleskin
muleskinner
mule skinner
mule spinner's cancer
mule spinners' cancer
mule-stubborn
mule stubborn
muleteer
mule train
mule twist
muling
mulish
smile like a mule eating briars
spinning mule
stubborn as a mule
test mule
work like a mule
zebra mule
zebrule
Translations: