Wiktionary

mush

See also: Mush and MUSH

English

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Etymology 1

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Probably a variant of mash, or from a dialectal variant of Middle English mos (“mush, pulp, porridge”); compare Middle English appelmos (“applesauce”), from Old English mōs (“food, victuals, porridge, mush”), from Proto-West Germanic *mōs, from Proto-Germanic *mōsą (“porridge, food”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- (“wet, fat, dripping”).

Cognate with Scots moosh (“mush”), Dutch moes (“pulp, mush, porridge”), German Mus (“jam, puree, mush”), Swedish mos (“pulp, mash, mush”). See also moose.

Alternative forms

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Pronunciation

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Noun

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mush (countable and uncountable, plural mushes)

  1. A somewhat liquid mess, often of food; a soft or semisolid substance.
    • 1855, Frederick Douglass, chapter 1, in My Bondage and My Freedom. […], New York, Auburn, N.Y.: Miller, Orton & Mulligan […], →OCLC:
      His food is of the coarsest kind, consisting for the most part of cornmeal mush, which often finds its way from the wooden tray to his mouth in an oyster shell.
  2. (radio) A mixture of noise produced by the harmonics of continuous-wave stations.
  3. (surfing) The foam of a breaker.
    • 2008, Bucky McMahon, Night Diver, page 80:
      And Rincon was all about surfing. Flash back thirty-odd years, to a skinny kid on a Styrofoam belly-board, pin-wheeling out into the mush of Jacksonville Beach, Florida.
  4. (geology) A magmatic body containing a significant proportion of crystals suspended in the liquid phase or melt.
  5. (MLE) A gun.
    Do you want me to back out the mush, bruv?
Translations
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Verb

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mush (third-person singular simple present mushes, present participle mushing, simple past and past participle mushed)

  1. To squish so as to break into smaller pieces or to combine with something else.
    He mushed the ingredients together.
    • 1981 August 15, Loraine Obler, “Sleeping Beauty Recast”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 5, page 17:
      One must compartmentalize one's life and not let different facets/experiences mush over into one another.
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Derived terms

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Derived terms

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See also

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Etymology 2

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From Old High German muos and Goidelic mus (“a pap”) or muss (“a porridge”), or any thick preparation of fruit.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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mush (countable and uncountable, plural mushes)

  1. A food comprising cracked or rolled grains cooked in water or milk; porridge.
  2. (rustic US) Cornmeal cooked in water and served as a porridge or as a thick sidedish like grits or mashed potatoes.
    • 2007, Andrew F. Smith, The Oxford Companion to American Food and Drink:
      However, they did make and sometimes even bake cornmeal mushes that could be either sweetened or fortified with fat.
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Etymology 3

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Believed to be a contraction of mush on, from Michif, in turn a corruption of French marchons! and marche!, the cry of the voyageurs and coureurs de bois to their dogs.

Pronunciation

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Interjection

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mush

  2. A directive given (usually to dogs or a horse) to start moving, or to move faster.
    • 1903 July, Jack London, “The Toil of Trace and Trail”, in The Call of the Wild, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC, pages 130–131:
      "An' of course the dogs can hike along all day with that contraption behind them," affirmed a second of the men. / "Certainly," said Hal, with freezing politeness, taking hold of the gee-pole with one hand and swinging his whip from the other. "Mush!" he shouted. "Mush on there!" / The dogs sprang against the breast-bands, strained hard for a few moments, then relaxed. They were unable to move the sled.
Derived terms
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Translations
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Noun

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mush (plural mushes)

  1. A walk, especially across the snow with dogs.

Verb

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mush (third-person singular simple present mushes, present participle mushing, simple past and past participle mushed)

  1. (intransitive) To walk, especially across the snow with dogs.
  2. (transitive) To drive dogs, usually pulling a sled, across the snow.
    • 1910, Jack London, Burning Daylight, part 1 chapter 4:
      Together the two men loaded and lashed the sled. They warmed their hands for the last time, pulled on their mittens, and mushed the dogs over the bank and down to the river-trail.

Etymology 4

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Simple contraction of mushroom.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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mush (plural mushes)

  1. (Quebec, slang) A magic mushroom.
Synonyms
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Translations
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Etymology 5

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From Angloromani mush (“man”), from Romani mursh, from Sanskrit मनुष्य (manuṣya, “human being, man”).

Pronunciation

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Noun

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mush (plural mushes)

  1. (British, slang, chiefly Southern England) (US, slang, chiefly Nonantum) A form of address, normally to a man.
    Synonyms: (UK) mate, (especially US) pal
    Oy mush, come over here and gimme a hand with the motor.
    • 2018, Brenda Spalding, Bottle Alley, Heritage Publishing, →ISBN, chapter 1:
      "Hey, Mush!" Tony Pellegrino called to Michael standing on the other side of the street.
      Set in Nonantum, Massachusetts.
  3. (British, slang, chiefly Northern England, Australia) The face.
    Synonym: mug
Derived terms
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Translations
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References

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Etymology 6

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Compare French moucheter (“to cut with small cuts”).

Verb

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mush (third-person singular simple present mushes, present participle mushing, simple past and past participle mushed)

  1. (transitive) To notch, cut, or indent (cloth, etc.) with a stamp.

Anagrams

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Angloromani

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Etymology

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Inherited from Romani murś.

Noun

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mush (plural mushes)

  1. man

Descendants

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  • → English: mush

References

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  • “mush”, in Angloromani Dictionary‎[1], The Manchester Romani Project, 2004-2006, page 96
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