mouse

en-noun

mouse (plural mice or (computing) mouses)

→ Bengali: মাউস (maus)

→ Brazilian Portuguese: mouse

→ French: souris (semantic loan)

→ Georgian: მაუსი (mausi)

→ Italian: mouse

→ Japanese: マウス (mausu)

→ Korean: 마우스 (mauseu)

→ Romanian: mouse

→ Spanish: mouse

desc

→ Thai: เมาส์ (máo), เม้าส์ (máo)

→ Thai: เมาส์ (máo), เม้าส์ (máo)

→ Vietnamese: chuột (semantic loan)

From Middle English mous, from Old English mūs, from Proto-West Germanic *mūs, from Proto-Germanic *mūs, from Proto-Indo-European *múh₂s.
cognates
Germanic cognates include Old Frisian mūs, Old Saxon mūs (German Low German Muus), Dutch muis, Old High German mūs (German Maus), Old Norse mús (Swedish mus, Danish mus, Norwegian mus, Icelandic mús, Faroese mús).
Indo-European cognates include Ancient Greek μῦς (mûs), Latin mūs, Spanish mur, Armenian մուկ (muk), Old Church Slavonic мꙑшь (myšĭ) (Russian мышь (myšʹ)), Albanian mi, Persian موش (muš),Northern Kurdish mişk,Sanskrit मूष् (mūṣ).
The computing sense was coined by American engineer Bill English in 1965 and first used publicly in a publication titled "Computer-Aided Display Control", in reference to the similarity with the animal.

coin

the best laid plans of mice and men go oft astray

the best laid plans of mice and men often go awry

At twilight in the summer there is never anybody to fear—man, woman, or cat—in the chambers and at that hour the mice come out. They do not eat parchment or foolscap or red tape, but they eat the luncheon crumbs.

1892, Walter Besant, chapter II, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC:

老鼠

ló͘-chhír, ló͘-chhí, niáu-chhú, niáu-chhí, niáu-chhír

move the mouse over the icon (that is, move the mouse so that the pointer moves over the icon)

(computing) (plural mice or mouses) An input device that is moved over a pad or other flat surface to produce a corresponding movement of a pointer on a graphical display.

踎士

loaned from English, though more commonly simply written as mouse

(nautical) A turn or lashing of spun yarn or small stuff, or a metallic clasp or fastening, uniting the point and shank of a hook to prevent its unhooking or straightening out.


gerbil

en-verb

gerbil (third-person singular simple present gerbils, present participle gerbilling or gerbiling, simple past and past participle gerbilled or gerbiled)

gerbils (present singular third-person)
gerbilling (participle present)
gerbiling (participle present)
gerbilled (participle past)
gerbilled (past)
gerbiled (participle past)
gerbiled (past)

From French gerbille, from Latin gerbo, from Arabic جَرْبُوع (jarbūʕ) or يَرْبُوع (yarbūʕ, “jerboa”). Doublet of jerboa.

(intransitive, slang) To insert a small animal (typically a gerbil, supposedly) into one's rectum (a sexual practice in urban myth).


bandicoot

Ultimately from Telugu పందికొక్కు (pandikokku), from పంది (pandi, “pig, boar”) + కొక్కు (kokku, “bandicoot”); first used of the Asian murids, thence applied to the Australian marsupials which bear some resemblance.

compound

Any of various small Australian marsupials with distinctive long snouts, of the family Peramelidae (with the exception of genus Macrotis, called bilbies).

Any of several rat-like rodents of the genera Bandicota and Nesokia of southeast Asia.

intianrotta

rat-like rodent of the genera Bandicota or Nesokia


bandicoot

en-verb

bandicoot (third-person singular simple present bandicoots, present participle bandicooting, simple past and past participle bandicooted)

bandicoots (present singular third-person)
bandicooting (participle present)
bandicooted (participle past)
bandicooted (past)

(Australia, informal) To steal growing root vegetables from a garden by digging the vegetable out but leaving the tops undisturbed.


mischief

en-noun

mischief (countable and uncountable, plural mischiefs)

From Middle English myschef, meschef, meschief, mischef, from Old French meschief, from meschever (“to bring to grief”), from mes- (“badly”) + chever (“happen; come to a head”), from Vulgar Latin *capare, from Latin caput (“head”).

Drink led to mischief.

(uncountable) Conduct that playfully causes petty annoyance.

kattekwaad

conduct that playfully causes petty annoyance

She had mischief in her heart.

Sooner or later he'll succeed in doing some serious mischief.

Was I the Cauſe of Miſchief, or the Man / Whoſe lawlesſ Luſt the bloody War began?

1697, Virgil, “The Tenth Book of the Æneis”, in John Dryden, transl., The Works of Virgil: Containing His Pastorals, Georgics, and Æneis. […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 502, lines 139–140:

I have been tired in history with the perpetual folly of those states, who call in foreigners to assist them against a common enemy: but the mischief was, these allies would never be brought to allow, that the common enemy was quite subdued. And they had reason; for it proved at last, that one part of the common enemy was those who called them in, and so the allies became at length the masters.

1718 December 15 (Gregorian calendar), Jonathan Swift, “A Letter Concerning the Sacramental Test”, in Thomas Sheridan, John Nichols, editors, The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, […], new edition, volume IV, London: […] J[oseph] Johnson, […], published 1801, →OCLC, page 435:

Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.

1815 December (indicated as 1816), [Jane Austen], chapter 8, in Emma: […], volume I, London: […] [Charles Roworth and James Moyes] for John Murray, →OCLC:

I fear this means that there is some mischief afoot.

1914 September – 1915 May, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 1, in The Valley of Fear: A Sherlock Holmes Novel, New York, N.Y.: George H[enry] Doran Company, published 27 February 1915, →OCLC:

(uncountable) Harm or trouble caused by an agent or brought about by a particular cause.

беля

harm or trouble caused by an agent or brought about by a particular cause

(law) A criminal offence defined in various ways in various jurisdictions, sometimes including causing damage to another's property.

What the mischief are you? and how the mischief did you get here, and where in thunder did you come from?

1967, The Statesman, volume 12, page 260:

(euphemistic) The Devil; used as an expletive.

(Australia) Casual and/or flirtatious sexual acts.


house mouse

The universally common mouse of the species Mus musculus.


mousy

en-adj

mousy (comparative mousier, superlative mousiest)

mousier (comparative)
mousiest (superlative)

From mouse + -y (forms adjectives from nouns).


field mouse

One of several species of mice in genus Akodon found in South America.


vika

Borrowed from Pijin vika, from Vangunu [Term?], a Solomon Islands language.

A large, tree-dwelling rodent (Uromys vika) found in the Solomon Islands


water rat

From water + rat. Compare Saterland Frisian Woaterrotte, West Frisian wetterrôt, Dutch waterrat, German Low German Waterrötte, Waterrött, German Wasserratte, Danish vandrotte, Swedish vattenråtta, Icelandic vatnsrotta.


desert rat

gundi

one of various mouselike desert dwellers

One of various mouselike rodents species inhabiting deserts:

A kangaroo rat (genus Dipodomys) from North America

A jerboa, including those of species Jaculus orientalis and Jaculus jaculus (lesser Egyptian jerboa), which inhabit the desert regions of North Africa.

A British or Australian soldier who served in North Africa with the British 7th Armoured Division in 1941-42.

aavikkorotta

British or Australian soldier of 7th Armoured Division


murine

From Latin stem, mur-, of mus (“mouse”) + -ine.


Norway rat

The common name was popularised (and perhaps coined) by English naturalist John Berkenhout, in his Outlines of the Natural History of Great Britain (1769). Berkenhout believed the species migrated to England from Norwegian ships in 1728; he is also responsible for the scientific name.

Rattus norvegicus
Rattus norvegicus#Translingual


brown rat

A rat of species Rattus norvegicus, common worldwide.


Asian black rat

en-noun

Asian black rat (plural Asian black rats)


house rat

Rattus rattus
Rattus rattus#Translingual


roof rat

A large roof rat ran from the overflowing bins and disappeared under the house.

2021, Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness, Canongate Books (2022), page 308:


wharf rat

(slang) A man who hangs around a wharf in the hope of finding temporary work there.


black rat

The black rat spread wherever they settled, and so tied was it to Roman habitats that it became extinct in Britain following the Roman withdrawal, only to reappear in Norman times. Thereafter the black rat prospered - until the arrival of the larger brown rat (also known as the sewer rat or Norway rat), which reached Britain at about the time of the Hanoverian succession in the eighteenth century.

2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: A Natural History, page 272:

A common species of rat, Rattus rattus, originating anciently in Asia but now distributed worldwide.


yellow-necked mouse

yellow-necked mouse (plural yellow-necked mice)

A mouse of species Apodemus flavicollis of the sub-family Murinae (Old World rats and mice), of much of western Eurasia.


striped field mouse

striped field mouse (plural striped field mice)

A field mouse of species Apodemus agrarius, native to much of western Eurasia and to east Asia,


harvest mouse

A New World mouse of the genus Reithrodontomys.


ritten

According to Willy Raets (famous dutch breeder who e-mails with AG) it is the above, although he can't tell for sure until the ritten is 3 months old.

1999 January 19, Anne M@rie [ Scarlet's Shelter ], “New ratties.. :-))”, in alt.pets.rodents (Usenet):


Himalayan field rat

Himalayan field rat (plural Himalayan field rats)

A rat that lives in the Himalayas and southeast Asia; taxonomic name Rattus nitidus.


jird

Probably from Arabic جُرَذ (juraḏ, “a rat”) in a vulgar pronunciation.

The jirds are treated with the suspension or solution obtained by this method. Only one jird is used for each compound for the primary screen.

1982, D. A. Denham, “6: Experience with a Screen for Macrofilaricidal Activity Using Transplanted Adult Brugia pahangi in the Peritoneal Cavities of Meriones unguiculatus”, in Dawn Owen, editor, Animal Models in Parasitology, The Macmillan Press Ltd, page 96:

1997, Harold Townson, Chapter 9: Infection of mosquitoes with filaria, J. M. Crampton, C. B. Beard, C. Louis, The Molecular Biology of Insect Disease Vectors, World Health Organization, Chapman & Hall, page 105,
The jird need not be anaesthetized prior to inoculation.

Escherichia coli has been isolated from jirds that have died of septicemia.

2012, Stephen A. Felt, Nancy L. Merrill, Fady I. Guirguis, Hussein I. Hussein, “Chapter 53: Egyptian Fat-Tailed Jird”, in Mark A. Suckow, Karla A. Stevens, Ronald P. Wilson, editors, The Laboratory Rabbit, Guinea Pig, Hamster, and Other Rodents, Elsevier (Academic Press), page 1165:

Any of various agricultural pest rodents of genus Meriones or rodents of certain species in the genera Sekeetamys, Brachiones, and sometimes Pachyuromys.


Ziegler's water rat

Ziegler's water rat (plural Ziegler's water rats)

Hydromys ziegleri, a species of water rat native to the mountains of Papua New Guinea.


mousekin

“Frisk about, pretty little mousekin,” says grey Grimalkin, purring in the corner, and keeping watch with her green eyes.

1857–1859, W[illiam] M[akepeace] Thackeray, The Virginians. A Tale of the Last Century, volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury & Evans, […], published 1858–1859, →OCLC:

Dufleur blinked at the stuffed oblong bit of gray cloth that had originally been a mousekin for Fairyfoot. The ears and tail were all gone. The fabric was nubby and snagged, with a couple of bits gone, showing the padding.


water mouse

From Middle English water mous, watermowse, equivalent to water + mouse.

(zoology) Any of several species of rodents of the genus Hydromys, native to New Guinea and Australia, with strong hind legs and partially webbed toes.


gerbillid

(zoology) Any member of the murid subfamily Gerbillinae; a gerbil.


gerbilline

(zoology) Any gerbil of the subfamily Gerbillinae


rakali

The rakali yawns, snaps its mouth shut and curls back to sleep, untroubled […].

2018, Robbie Arnott, Flames, Text Publishing, published 2023, page 29:

(Australia) An amphibious rodent, Hydromys chrysogaster, found throughout Australia, having dark fur and a white-tipped tail; the water rat.


Mitchell's hopping mouse

Mitchell's hopping mouse (plural Mitchell's hopping mice)

Notomys mitchellii, a bipedal Australian rodent with large back legs.


spiny rat

Spiny rats, Proechimys semispinosus, are rodents weighing up to 500 g which eat fruits and seeds that have fallen to the forest floor. In Lutz catchment, a spiny rat's territory is three-fifths as wide as an agouti's (Smythe et al. 1982).

1999, Egbert Giles Leigh Jr., Tropical Forest Ecology : A View from Barro Colorado Island, page 28:

Members of the important Neotropical family Echimyidae, which includes a viety of roughly rat-sized rodents, are called spiny rats.[…]Spiny rats are widely distributed in the Neotropics, occurring from Nicaragua southward through the northern half of South America to Paraguay and south-eastern Brazil.

2011, Terry A. Vaughan, James M. Ryan, Nicholas J. Czaplewski, Mammalogy, page 232:

Any of certain caviomorph rodents of the family Echimyidae, especially of genus Proechimys, that resemble rats and have stiff, pointed hairs, or spines.

Any murine rodent of the genus Maxomys (sometimes considered a subgenus of Rattus).

Any murine rodent of the genus Tokudaia.

Any murine rodent of the genus Echiothrix.


Mongolian gerbil

Mongolian gerbil (plural Mongolian gerbils)

Meriones unguiculatus, a rodent of the subfamily Gerbillinae.


desert mouse

Pseudomys desertor, a murid found only in Australia.


Namaqua rock rat

Namaqua rock rat (plural Namaqua rock rats)

Aethomys namaquensis, an African rodent.


sewer rat

LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-sewer rat.wav

The black rat [...] became extinct in Britain following the Roman withdrawal, only to reappear in Norman times. Thereafter the black rat prospered - until the arrival of the larger brown rat (also known as the sewer rat or Norway rat), which reached Britain at about the time of the Hanoverian succession in the eighteenth century.

Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: Any rat that lives in sewers.


laboratory mouse

laboratory mouse (plural laboratory mice)

A small mammal of the order Rodentia, usually Mus musculus, which is bred and kept for scientific research.

實驗鼠 /实验鼠

small mammal of the order Rodentia which is bred and kept for scientific research


ratton

From Middle English ratoun, from Anglo-Norman ratoun and Middle French raton, corresponding to rat + -oon.

'A Yorkshire burr,' he affirmed, 'was as much better than a cockney's lisp as a bull's bellow than a ratton’s squeak.'

1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], Shirley. A Tale. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC:

To dark is still used in Swaledale (Yorkshire) in the sense of to lie hid, as, 'Te rattens [rats] mun ha bin darkin whel nu [till now]; we hannot heerd tem tis last fortnith'.

1873, Richard Morris, Walter William Skeat, “Glossarial Index”, in Specimens of Early English, volumes II: From Robert of Gloucester to Gower, A.D. 1298—A.D. 1393, Oxford: Clarendon Press, page 490:

(now Northern England, Scotland, Ireland) A rat.


bulldog rat

A dark rat once endemic to Christmas Island (†Rattus nativitatis), now extinct.


Maclear's rat

Named after Captain John Maclear (1838–1907) of the British survey-ship HMS Flying-fish, who collected the specimen from Christmas Island in 1886.

†Rattus macleari, a species of brown rat once endemic to Christmas Island, now extinct.


vlei rat

Any of various groove-toothed rats of the genus Otomys, found in sub-Saharan Africa.


Polynesian rat

Rattus exulans
Rattus exulans#Translingual

Rattus exulans, the third most numerous species of rat on Earth.


fancy rat

A domesticated brown rat (Rattus norvegicus), common as a pet.


bush rat

The noise ceased the moment I crawled into the attic, but something was rotten in the roof, and a putrid smell and pyramids of chewed cardboard suggested that possums or bush rats had nested in boxes stacked with the previous owner's red and yellow moodscapes.

2004, Nicholas Shakespeare, In Tasmania, Harvill Press, p. 18

(Australia) Any of various rat-sized rodents and marsupials, especially local species of Rattus.


rock rat

Certain members of the subfamily Murinae in the family Muridae, those in:

Petromyscus, a southwestern African genus in the subfamily Petromyscinae of the family Nesomyidae (more frequently referred to as rock mice)

Aconaemys, a genus in Argentina and Chile, of the family Octodontidae:

Petromus, an African genus often called dassie rats, of the family Petromuridae

Laonastes, a genus from Laos, of the family Diatomyidae


shaking rat Kawasaki

(biology, zoology) A reeler-phenotype neuronal mutant rat.


conilurine

Characteristic of rodents of the genus Conilurus


Malabar rat

(obsolete) A bandicoot (rodent of the genera Bandicota and Nesokia).


melomys

A rat of the genus Melomys, principally of Australasia.


chromodacryorrhea

red lacrimal secretion, typically in rats (the production of so-called "bloody tears")


Long-Evans rat

Developed by Drs. Long and Evans in 1915 by crossing Wistar females with a wild gray male.

An outbred rat used in medical research, white with a black or brown hood.


Lewis rat

Bred by Margaret Lewis from Wistar stock in the early 1950s.

A kind of albino rat used in medical research, exhibiting docile behavior and low fertility, and suffering from high incidences of neoplasms and other pathology.


Rowett nude rat

Rowett nude rat (plural Rowett nude rats)

A kind of rat with no thymus and thus a severely compromised immune system, used in medical research.


biobreeding rat

biobreeding rat (plural biobreeding rats)

A kind of inbred rat, used in medical research, that spontaneously develops autoimmune type 1 diabetes.


mouselet

Pretty soon she would have a litter of five or six tiny, pink, unfurred mouselets to put into it.

1963, Friends Journal, volume 9, page 105:


Tate's shrew rat

Tate's shrew rat (plural Tate's shrew rats)

Named after American zoologist George Henry Hamilton Tate.

Tateomys rhinogradoides, a rodent in the family Muridae, found only in central Sulawesi, Indonesia.


plague rat

Modern sense coined during the COVID-19 pandemic as a reference to rats being a common carrier of disease, possibly also looking at the role of rats in the Black Plague and influenced by the use of "rat" as a derogatory insult in general.

She was found to be one of the type of white women whose nasal organs appear never to have been developed, and who take to the loathsome Mongolian and his filthy hovel as blithely as a plague rat to a sewer.

1903 February 8, The Truth, Sydney, page 3, column 4:

A rat which acts as a vector of the plague; a sewer rat.


New Guinean rat

New Guinean rat (plural New Guinean rats)

A rat of the species Rattus novaeguineae.


Seram long-tailed mosaic-tailed rat

Seram long-tailed mosaic-tailed rat (plural Seram long-tailed mosaic-tailed rats)

Seram long-tailed mosaic-tailed rats (plural)

Melomys fulgens, a species of rat found in Seram.


tateril

(zoology) gerbil of the genus Taterillus


sand rat

Any of the rodents in the genus Psammomys, related to gerbils.


Cypriot mouse

Today, among all of the Mediterranean's unique island mammals, there is a single survivor—the Cypriot mouse (Mus cypriacus)—a species so obscure and small that it was not even recognised as being distinct from the house mouse until 2006.

2018, Tim Flannery, Europe: The First 100 Million Years, Penguin, published 2019, page 249:

A species of mouse, Mus cypriacus, endemic to Cyprus.


Taiwan field mouse

Taiwan field mouse (plural Taiwan field mice)


zebra mouse

Any of the small, striped, mouselike African rodents of genus Lemniscomys.


kusu rat

A small mouselike African rodent of the genus Arvicanthis.


St Kilda field mouse

St Kilda field mouse (plural St Kilda field mice)

The St Kilda field mice that live on that isolated Hebridean island, introduced by hitchhiking on Viking longships only about a thousand years ago, are already much heavier than those on the mainland.

2022, Thomas Halliday, Otherworlds, Penguin, published 2023, page 54:

A subspecies of wood mouse, Apodemus sylvaticus hirtensis, endemic to the Hebridean island of St Kilda.


mosaic-tailed rat

mosaic-tailed rat (plural mosaic-tailed rats)

Any of various rodents of the genus Melomys.


Hanoverian rat

The name was introduced by English naturalist Charles Waterton, a devout Catholic, as a slur on Protestant Hanoverians whose British rule began in 1714, shortly before the species first appeared in Britain.


Nairobi grass rat

Nairobi grass rat (plural Nairobi grass rats)


stick-nest rat

Any of the rodents of the genus Leporillus.


yellow-necked field mouse

yellow-necked field mouse (plural yellow-necked field mice)


cloud rat

Any of the tribe Phloeomyini of arboreal, nocturnal herbivorous rodents endemic to the cloud forests of the Philippines.


kortung

Origin unknown; possible from an Indigenous language of Western Australia.


hopping mouse

Any of various endemic Australian mice of the genus Notomys.


rabbit-rat

Any of three rodents of the genus Conilurus, of Australia, New Guinea, and Melville Island, two of which are now extinct.


swamp rat

The rodent, Rattus lutreolus, of coastal eastern and southern Australia.


hoary bamboo rat

hoary bamboo rat (plural hoary bamboo rats)