mouche

See also: mouché

English

Etymology

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.

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French

Etymology

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) 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

Derived terms

• faire mouche
• gobe-mouche
• mouche à miel
• mouche à feu
• mouche du vinaigre
• oiseau-mouche

• papier à mouches
• papier colle-mouches
• papier tue-mouches
• pattes de mouche
• prendre la mouche

Related terms

• mouchard
• moucheron
• moucheter

Descendants

• → English: mouche
• → Portuguese: muche

Verb

mouche

1. first-person singular present indicative of moucher
2. third-person singular present indicative of moucher
3. first-person singular present subjunctive of moucher
4. third-person singular present subjunctive of moucher
5. second-person singular imperative of moucher

References

• “mouche” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Further reading

• “mouche” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

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Portuguese

Noun

mouche f (plural mouches)

1. Alternative spelling of muche