mooch
/ˈmuːt͡ʃ/
mooch verb: to wander around aimlessly, often causing irritation to others. Also the pronunciation spelling of much.
Verb
mooch (third-person singular simple present mooches, present participle mooching, simple past and past participle mooched)
- To wander around aimlessly, often causing irritation to others.
- Near-synonyms: loiter, roam
- These chaps that mooch about, as Hyde was doing, pick up all sorts of odds and ends. He may have pinched them from a chemist’s shop.1922, J. S. Fletcher, The Middle of Things, New York: A. Knopf, page 161
- To beg, cadge, or sponge; to exploit or take advantage of others for personal gain.
- I managed to mooch my way up the journalistic ladder to the next, more impressive level of “Interviewer”.1990, Michael L. Frankel & friends, Gently with the Tides, Washington (DC): Center for Marine Conservation, →ISBN, page 26
- Mr. Prince responded on Twitter: “Phony fraud photographers keep mooching me. Why? I changed the game,” he wrote on Wednesday. His Instagram account, which previously had over 70,000 followers, is currently disabled.2017 July 20, Andrew R. Chow, quoting Richard Prince, “Copyright Case Over Richard Prince Instagram Show to Go Forward”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- To steal or filch.
- I'm tired of driving you all over and sick of you living in my house, mooching my food.2019, Susan Alice Bickford, Dread of Winter
- Synonyms:
- steal, abduct, abstract, appropriate, bag, bandit, bash and grab, bone, boost, burgle
Noun (1)
mooch (plural mooches)
- An aimless stroll.
- Jack wouldn't be arriving for another ten minutes, so I had a mooch around the garden.
- At the secondary school where I normally work as a librarian, I take key workers’ and other children on a “nature mooch”. We undull our senses.2020 April 20, Nicola Chester, “Country diary: a nature mooch undulls the children’s senses”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
- One who mooches; a moocher.
- "No! I'm sick of you being a mooch, bumming off me all the time! I'm going to London for a few days."2000 July 8, “Dulcie Domum: London calling”, in The Guardian, →ISSN
- Synonyms:
- bloodsucker, bludger, bummer, freeloader, free rider, gadfly, leech, moocher, parasite, scrounge
Noun (2)
mooch (plural mooches)
- Synonym of Scaramucci (“unit of time”).
- If we take Scaramucci’s 10-day figure to be the standard of measurement — one “mooch” — then Pruitt survived an amazing 50.3 mooches, even while enduring more than a dozen scandals, any one of which would have doomed a lesser man.2018 July 6, Dana Milbank, The Washington Post
- Scaramucci, who jokingly measures time in mooches, a unit equal to approximately 11 days, said he doesn’t necessarily like the version of himself he often sees on screen, but feels director Andrew J. Moscato was accurate.2018 October 27, John Carucci, “Anthony Scaramucci defends Trump, but doesn't always agree”, in Associated Press (press release)-
- Synonyms:
- Scaramucci
Also used as
mooch is also the pronunciation spelling of much.
Examples of mooch in a sentence
- You have to be alone to mooch about properly.2007 August 10, Guy Browning, “How to … mooch about”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
- With 79 minutes gone, the most celebrated team of the modern age had been reduced to bunch of mooching, stumbling yellow-shirted spectators.2019 May 8, Barney Ronay, “Liverpool’s waves of red fury and recklessness end in joyous bedlam”, in The Guardian:
- But I would point out to people that Stephanie has lasted way more “Mooches” than me.2019 August 29, Peter Nicholas, “Anthony Scaramucci Wants You to Believe Him This Time”, in The Atlantic:
Synonyms of mooch
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of mooch
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | mooches |
| present participle | mooching |
| past participle | mooched |
| past | mooched |
| alternative form | mouch |
| Noun | |
| plural | mooches |
Origin of mooch
From Middle English moochen, mouchen (“to pretend poverty”), from Old French muchier, mucier, mucer (“to skulk, hide, conceal”), from Frankish *mukkjan (“to hide, conceal oneself”), from Proto-Germanic *mukjaną, *mūkōną (“to hide, ambush”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mūg-, *(s)mewgʰ- (“swindler, thief”). Cognate with Old High German mūhhōn (“to store, cache, plunder”), Middle High German muchen, mucken (“to hide, stash”), Middle English müchen, michen (“to rob, steal, pilfer”). More at mitch. Alternate etymology derives mooch from Middle English mucchen (“to hoard, be stingy”, literally “to hide coins in one's nightcap”), from Middle English mucche (“nightcap”), from Middle Dutch mutse (“cap, nightcap”), from Medieval Latin almucia (“nightcap”), of unknown origin, possibly Arabic. More at mutch, amice.
Clipping of Scaramucci.
Words formed from mooch
Phrases with mooch
Words that rhyme with mooch
Questions about mooch
- What does mooch mean?
- Mooch means to wander around aimlessly, often causing irritation to others.
- How do you use mooch in a sentence?
- You have to be alone to mooch about properly.
- What part of speech is mooch?
- Mooch can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce mooch?
- Mooch is pronounced /ˈmuːt͡ʃ/.
- What is the past tense of mooch?
- The past tense of mooch is mooched.
Words near mooch in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mooch (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-mooch.wav.
Cite this entry: “mooch.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mooch. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.