mouche

See also: mouché

English

Etymology

From French mouche. Doublet of Musca.

Noun

mouche (plural mouches)

1. A soul patch, especially in a historical (pre-modern) context.
   • 1908, Everybody's Magazine, page 252:

     They lent him a worn aspect which not even a fiercely erect little mustache and a tiny mouche beneath the lower lip could counteract.

   • 1921, Elizabeth Douglas Van Buren, Figurative terra-cotta revetments in etruria and Latium: in the VI. and V. centuries B.C., page 9:

     The hair and beard are represented by a plastic mass : the mouche under the lower lip radiates outward and the moustache consists of two separate strands ending in spirals.

   • 2006, Linda M. Scott, Fresh Lipstick: Redressing Fashion and Feminism, Macmillan, →ISBN, page 203:

     In the colonial period, the taste for red lips and cheeks came and went, as did fashions for mouches and wigs.

   • 2014, Jack B. Rochester, Madrone, Wheatmark, Inc., →ISBN:

     LA is very thin, wears a thin mustache and a tiny beatnik mouche under his lower lip. His brown hair is shoulder length. Mike is surfer-blond, like Ricky in Germany; his hair is shorter, accentuating his somewhat pudgy countenance.

2. Small stickers or patches affixed to the face as a beauty mark.

French

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French mousche, from Old French mousche, musche, from Latin musca, from a Proto-Indo-European root *mus-, *mu-, *mew-.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /muʃ/

• Audio:

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• Audio (Paris):

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Noun

mouche f (plural mouches)

1. fly (insect)
2. bullseye (center of a target)
3. (historical) (espionage) a spy employed by the ancien régime to seek out subversive ideas
4. (Louisiana) bee

   Synonym: mouche à miel

5. soul patch, mouche (narrow beard descending from lower lip)

Derived terms

• amanite tue-mouches
• écraser une mouche avec un marteau
• enculer les mouches
• enculeur de mouches
• enculeuse de mouches
• faire mouche
• gobe-mouche
• mouche à feu
• mouche à merde
• mouche à miel
• mouche de feu
• mouche de vinaigre
• mouche du coche
• mouche du vinaigre
• mouche luisante
• ne pas faire de mal à une mouche
• oiseau-mouche
• on n'attrape pas des mouches avec du vinaigre
• papier à mouches
• papier colle-mouches
• papier tue-mouches
• pattes de mouche
• pêche à la mouche
• pied de mouche
• prendre la mouche
• tapette à mouches
• tuer une mouche avec un canon

Related terms

• mouchard
• moucheron
• moucheter

Descendants

• → English: mouche
• → Portuguese: muche
• → Swedish: musch
• → Turkish: muş

Verb

mouche

1. inflection of moucher:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

References

• “mouche”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Further reading

• “mouche”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Portuguese

Noun

mouche f (plural mouches)

1. Alternative spelling of muche

Swedish

Noun

mouche c

1. Alternative spelling of musch.