Mouse

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /maʊs/

Definitions

1. A small furry mammal with a pointed snout and a long tail that often lives near humans ; a hand-held device used to control a cursor on a computer screen
2. A tiny rodent commonly found in houses and fields ; an electronic device used for moving a pointer and clicking to interact with a computer
3. A diminutive mammal noted for its quick movements and long tail ; a peripheral device used to operate graphical interfaces on computers

Etymology: The rodent sense is one of the oldest words in English, reaching back to Old English "mūs" and to a root that stretches far beyond Germanic. Its cognates appear across the family: Dutch "muis", German "Maus", Swedish "mus", and Icelandic "mús", as well as Ancient Greek "μῦς" and Latin "mūs". Sanskrit "mūṣ" and Persian "muš" are related too, pointing to an Indo-European ancestor, the reconstructed "*múHs", that was already naming this small creature thousands of years ago. The most surprising twist comes much later. In 1965, the American engineer Bill English coined the computing sense, the handheld pointing device, in a publication titled "Computer-Aided Display Control". He chose the name for its resemblance to the animal: a small body with a tail-like cable trailing behind it. A word that had sat in the Germanic and classical languages for millennia thus acquired a sense that now sits on nearly every desk.

Synonyms: rodent, vermin