mule

¹ American  

[myool] / myul /

noun

1. the sterile offspring of a female horse and a male donkey, valued as a work animal, having strong muscles, a body shaped like a horse, and donkeylike long ears, small feet, and sure-footedness.

2. any hybrid between the donkey and the horse.

3. Informal. a very stubborn person.

4. Botany. any sterile hybrid.

5. Biology. a hybrid, especially one between the canary and some other finch.

6. Slang. a person paid to carry or transport contraband, especially drugs, for a smuggler.

7. a small locomotive used for pulling rail cars, as in a coal yard or on an industrial site, or for towing, as of ships through canal locks.

8. Also called spinning mule.  a machine for spinning cotton or other fibers into yarn and winding the yarn on spindles.

9. Nautical. a large triangular staysail set between two masts and having its clew set well aft.

10. Numismatics. a hybrid coin having the obverse of one issue and the reverse of the succeeding issue, or vice versa.

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idioms

1. forty acres and a mule, a broken or unfulfilled promise, especially one with unjust, long-term consequences: an allusion to the parcels of farmland that formerly enslaved African Americans were promised and given after the Civil War and then had taken away from them.

   The protesters chanted their demand, “Real action, real justice, no forty acres and a mule.”

mule ² American  

[myool] / myul /

noun

1. a lounging slipper that covers the toes and instep or only the instep.

2. a woman's shoe resembling this.

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mule ¹ British  

/ mjuːl /

noun

1. the sterile offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, used as a beast of burden Compare hinny 1

2. any hybrid animal

   a mule canary

3. Also called: spinning mule.  a machine invented by Samuel Crompton that spins cotton into yarn and winds the yarn on spindles

4. informal an obstinate or stubborn person

5. slang a person who is paid to transport illegal drugs for a dealer

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mule ² British  

/ mjuːl /

noun

1. a backless shoe or slipper

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mule More Idioms  

1. see stubborn as a mule.

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Etymology

Origin of mule¹

First recorded before 1000; Middle English, from Old French, from Latin mūla “mule” (feminine); replacing Old English mūl, from Latin mūlus (masculine)

Origin of mule²

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English mule, moule “sore spot on the heel, chilblain,” perhaps from Middle Dutch mūle

Example Sentences

Here are five mules pulling this century along:

From The Wall Street Journal

I had been enamored of this view since 1962, when I first drove to the end of Highway 190 in Quaking Aspen to begin my summer job packing mules into the Sierra backcountry.

From Los Angeles Times

From there, smaller vehicles navigate over rough terrain before porters and mules haul baskets on the final stretch, up to 20,000 feet above sea level.

From The Wall Street Journal

The company said the shoes—a chunky mule and sneaker, respectively—have bright orange foam nodes on their soles that sharpen the wearer’s senses, potentially increasing focus.

From The Wall Street Journal

McIntosh has watched mule deer since he was a kid.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• burro
• horse