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moose

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See also: Moose

English

WOTD – 15 October 2011
A moose.

Pronunciation

Etymology 1

Earlier mus, moos, from an Eastern Algonquian language name for the animal, such as Massachusett moos, mws, Narragansett moos or Penobscot mos (cognate to Abenaki moz), from Proto-Algonquian *mo·swa (“it strips”), referring to how a moose strips tree bark when feeding: compare Massachusett moos-u (“he strips, cuts smooth”).[1][2]

Noun

moose (plural moose or (dated, rare) mooses or (nonstandard, humorous) meese)

  1. The largest member of the deer family (Alces americanus, sometimes included in Alces alces), of which the male has very large, palmate antlers.
    We saw a moose at the edge of the woods.
  2. Any of the extinct moose-like deer of the genera Cervalces and Libralces.
    • 2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 152:
      Europe’s giant beavers lived at the same time as the first moose, Libralces gallicus.
  3. (figuratively, derogatory, colloquial) An ugly person.
Usage notes
  • The usual plural of moose is moose; compare the names of many animals, such as sheep, deer and fish, which are also invariant.
    • However, keep in mind that deer and sheep are invariant due to a phonological change which happened before the Old English period (see -u at Etymology 5), and that fish seemingly became reanalyzed according to that paradigm. It may be that elk became influenced by the same paradigm (resulting in its current possibility of pluralization with or without -s), which may have influenced moose.
    • On the other hand, it might be that moose has an invariant plural because it is a foreign word (as a tentative example, consider ninja from Japanese 忍者, a language typically without pluralizing suffixes), even though the Algonquin languages pluralize this noun with a suffix. For example, see Abenaki moz.
  • Other plurals are rare and non-standard: mooses (with the usual English plural-forming suffix -s) and meese (jocularly formed by analogy to goose → geese).
Synonyms
Derived terms
Descendants
Translations
See also

Etymology 2

Borrowed from Japanese むすめ (“daughter”).

Noun

moose

  1. (US, military, slang) An Asian girl taken as a lover.
    • 2005, Rupert Nelson, Like the Rings of a Tree, page 279:
      In military bases in the rear areas it was common for soldiers to have a moose.
    • 2011, Michael Cullen Green, Black Yanks in the Pacific, page 75:
      Even the lowest ranked serviceman, because of his salary, benefits, and status as an American occupationaire, could afford to “maintain a ‘Moose’ and still take care of his other obligations.”

References

  1. ^ Douglas Harper (2001–2026), “moose”, in Online Etymology Dictionary.
  2. ^ “moose”, in Dictionary.com Unabridged, Dictionary.com, LLC, 1995–present.

Ojibwe

Noun

moose (plural mooseg)

  1. worm
  2. caterpillar

Scots

moose

Etymology

From Middle English mous.

Pronunciation

Noun

moose (plural mice)

  1. mouse
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