Dictionary

mouser en · NOUN

Pronunciation

• /ˈmaʊzə(ɹ)/
• (Southern-England) audio
• /ˈmaʊsə(ɹ)/

Etymology

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.

Meanings

1. A cat that catches mice, kept specifically for the purpose.
2. (Scotland, US) A moustache.
   • 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 […]. 1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 20:

Forms

Relateds

the official resident cat at 10 Downing Street (Chief Mouser to the Cabinet Office)

Translations (14)

sv råttfångarkatt (cat that catches mice) · ca rater (cat that catches mice) · pl kot łowny (cat that catches mice) · ca ratador (cat that catches mice) · sq micë (cat that catches mice) · vo mugamakat (cat that catches mice) · sh mišolovac (cat that catches mice) · vo mugamahikat (cat that catches mice) · fr souricier (cat that catches mice) · pdc Mauskatz (cat that catches mice) · gl murador (cat that catches mice) · ru мышелов (cat that catches mice) · vo mugamajikat (cat that catches mice) · hu egerész (cat that catches mice)