mooch
or mouch
[mooch]Slang.
- to borrow (a small item or amount) without intending to return or repay it.
- to get or take without paying or at another's expense; sponge: He always mooches cigarettes.
- to beg.
- to steal.
Show More
- to skulk or sneak.
- to loiter or wander about.
Show More
- Also mooch·er. a person who mooches.
Show More
Origin of mooch
1425–75; late Middle English, apparently variant of Middle English michen < Old French muchier to skulk, hide
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for moocher
Contemporary Examples
Race is also embedded in the whole set of presumptions about the 47 percent and the “moocher class.”
Historical Examples
The English moocher has to resort to his "gag," and his "lurks" are almost innumerable.
Tramping with TrampsJosiah Flynt
The fellow was correct about the clothes and the filthiness of the English moocher.
Tramping with TrampsJosiah Flynt
I'm the only moocher in this 'ouse, an' I want you to know it.
Tramping with TrampsJosiah Flynt
The giant was plunged in gloomy abstraction, and Vetch and the Moocher interchanged a significant glance.
For the Term of His Natural LifeMarcus Clarke
Vetch skipped nimbly on one side, but Gabbett struck the Moocher on the forehead with the axe.
For the Term of His Natural LifeMarcus Clarke
mooch
- (intr often foll by around) to loiter or walk aimlessly
- (intr) to behave in an apathetic way
- (intr) to sneak or lurk; skulk
- (tr) to cadge
- (tr) mainly US and Canadian to steal
Show More
Word Origin
C17: perhaps from Old French muchier to skulk
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for moocher
n.
"beggar, scrounger," 1857, agent noun from mooch (v.).
Show More
mooch
v.
mid-15c., "pretend poverty," probably from Old French muchier, mucier "to hide, sulk, conceal, hide away, keep out of sight," of uncertain origin, perhaps from Celtic or Germanic (Liberman prefers the latter, Klein the former). Or the word may be a variant of Middle English mucchen "to hoard, be stingy" (c.1300), probably originally "to keep coins in one's nightcap," from mucche "nightcap," from Middle Dutch muste "cap, nightcap," ultimately from Medieval Latin almucia, of unknown origin. Sense of "sponge off others" first recorded 1857.
Whatever the distant origin of mooch, the verb *mycan and its cognates have been part of European slang for at least two millennia. [Liberman]
Related: Mooched; mooching. As a noun meaning "a moocher," from 1914.
Show More
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper