mongoose
Americannoun
-
mongooses
plural
-
a slender, ferretlike carnivore, Herpestes edwardsi, of India, that feeds on rodents, birds, and eggs, noted especially for its ability to kill cobras and other venomous snakes.
-
any of several other animals of this genus or related genera.
noun
Usage
Plural word for mongoose The plural form of mongoose is mongooses (not mongeese). The plurals of some other singular words that end in -oose are also formed this way, including caboose/cabooses and papoose/papooses. The plural mongooses is confusing because the plural of goose is the irregular form geese, which derives directly from its original pluralization in Old English. However, the term mongoose only uses the standard English plural -s ending.
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of mongoose
1690–1700; < Marathi mangūs, variant of muṅgūs
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
However, unrestrained hunting, habitat loss and predation by the invasive mongoose left fewer than 30 in the wild by 1952.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2025
Thankfully, the mongoose rampage isn’t targeting humans, though they aren’t above ground-based kitchen invasions when pushed into an environmental threat, and their toxic bites can quickly become lethal.
From Salon ● Apr. 15, 2024
Despite the lack of evidence for the mongoose, though, the Irvings refused to back down.
From National Geographic ● Sep. 19, 2023
Meerkats, slender-tailed creatures with pointy faces, are members of the mongoose family and are native to Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
From New York Times ● Jun. 15, 2023
“It keeps out predators like mongoose and rats.”
From "Clairboyance" by Kristiana Kahakauwila
A man who lives in a log cabin and keeps wallabies, mongooses, porcupines, parrots and other rare birds has been told to move.
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
On the course, elaborate tombs of the city's past rulers poke through tangled trees that are home to peacocks, troops of monkeys and mongooses.
From Barron's ● Oct. 18, 2025
Dwarf mongooses are Africa's smallest carnivore, living in cooperatively breeding, territorial groups of 5-30 individuals.
From Science Daily ● Nov. 14, 2023
Spying swordtails, wily ravens and scheming mongooses are just three examples of the means by which animals make their power plays.
From Scientific American ● Apr. 15, 2022
It’s sliding under some of the nearby tents, leaping over people with ease, and running from a horde of mongooses.
From "Kwame Crashes the Underworld" by Craig Kofi Farmer
Random Word
Spin the wheel and learn a new word!
Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
