mouser

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See also: Mouser

English

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Etymology

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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

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Noun

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mouser (plural mousers)

  1. A cat that catches mice, kept specifically for the purpose. [from 15th c.]
  2. (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 […].
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Translations

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References

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  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.

Anagrams

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Middle English

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Noun

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mouser

  1. Alternative form of mousere

Scots

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Etymology

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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

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Noun

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mouser (plural mousers)

  1. moustache
    Synonym: moutash

References

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  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.