mule
/mjuːl/UK/mjuːl/
mule noun: the generally sterile male or female hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.
Noun (1)
mule (plural mules)
- The generally sterile male or female hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.
- One day he ran into a herd of a half dozen elk, so he rode his mule down the canyon three or four miles, leaving the sheep alone.2017, Robert S. McPherson, Cowboying In Canyon Country, Dog Ear Publishing, →ISBN, page 200
- The generally sterile hybrid offspring of any two species of animals.
- It would be exceedingly interesting to know if the hybrid would reproduce, a matter I deem exceedingly doubtful, for the chances are it would prove a "mule" (infertile).1922, Onnie Warren Smith, The Book of the Pike, page 187
- A hybrid plant.
- Vegetable mules supply an irrefragable argument in favour of the sexual system of botany.1789, Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson, page 149
- The most extraordinary mule, however, that is asserted to have been produced on the Continent, is a cross between the cabbage and horse-radish, which Monsieur Sageret reports that he has obtained […]1837, William Herbert, Amaryllidaceæ: Preceded by an Attempt to Arrange the Monocotyledonous Orders, and Followed by a Treatise on Cross-bred Vegetables, and Supplement, page 353
- A stubborn person.
- "Where in the hell do you think I learned to be such a mule?”2005, Dorothea Benton Frank, Isle of Palms, Penguin, →ISBN
- A person paid to smuggle drugs.
- Cocaine packet ingestion (these patients referred to as “mules”) may warrant surgery, Golytely or expectant passage.2006, “Gastroenterology: Esophageal Foreign Bodies”, in Steven E. Diaz, The Little Black Book of Emergency Medicine (Jones and Bartlett's Little Black Book Series), 2nd edition, Sudbury, MA: Jones...
- “Yeah, in Denver, we know about Uriarte's involvement in meth. Our Las Cruces office seized over six hundred pounds of methamphetamine from two of his mules last year.”2007, Thomas G. Blacklock, Safe Zone: A Novel Approach to the Drug War, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN, page 44
- Synonyms:
- drug mule
- A coin or medal minted with obverse and reverse designs not normally seen on the same piece, either intentionally or in error.
- What is less clear, however, is why mint workers should have chosen to produce mules, if they were making forgeries […]1988, Andrew Burnett, The Normanby hoard and other Roman coin hoards, British Museum Publications
- A MMORPG character, or NPC companion in a tabletop RPG, used mainly to store extra inventory for the owner's primary character.
- He was in the middle of organizing his massive stash of rare and exquisite bounty, all kept safely in the inventory cache of a mule, an entirely separate character which he paid a monthly fee to maintain exclusively for that purpose.2007, David L. McClard, Verotopia Online: The MMORPG of the Century, Xlibris, →ISBN, page 89
- Any of a group of cocktails involving ginger ale or ginger beer, citrus juice, and various liquors.
- A kind of triangular sail for a yacht.
- In heavier seas where a boat must sail a course dictated by waves, or where wave action makes power more important than pointing, the mule will prove the faster sail.1974, Yachting, volume 135, page 60
- A kind of cotton-spinning machine.
Verb
mule (third-person singular simple present mules, present participle muling, simple past and past participle muled)
- To smuggle (illegal drugs).
- There are many drug lords, each with his own corridor (think of it as a franchise of sorts) funneling narcotics into Texas. There are multifold methods of transport. The old, and still viable, way is to "mule" it across the Rio Grande in a small boat.2000, Arturo Longoria, Keepers of the Wilderness
- Thornton was supposed to mule it back to the States from one of the ports he stopped in, give it to Maxwell and Ames, and get the second half of a quarter-million.2004, William Glenn, The Sailor's Death
Noun (2)
mule (plural mules)
- Any shoe with an upper covering the front of the foot but without a back flap or strap, leaving the heel exposed.
- The bride was a shocking housekeeper and dragged round all day in boudoir cap, frowsy negligee and mules—slip, slop, slip, slop.1944, Emily Carr, “First Tenant”, in The House of All Sorts
- Routine dress for Tuesday will be bra and panties with high-heel satin mules.1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 29
- Synonyms:
- mule shoe
Proper noun capitalized: Mule
Mule (plural Mules)
- A surname.
mule meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
mule in Hindi
- offspring of male donkey and female horse
- खच्चर khaccar
mule in Tamil
- offspring of male donkey and female horse
- கோவேறுகழுதை kōvēṟukaḻutai
mule in Marathi
- खच्चर, खच्चड
mule in Urdu
- offspring of male donkey and female horse
- خچر xaccar
More languagesFewer languages
- mule in Bengali
- খচ্চর khoccor
- mule in Telugu
- కంచరగాడిద kañcaragāḍida
- mule in Malayalam
- ആൺകഴുതയുടെയും പെൺകുതിരയുടെയും സന്തതി, കോവർകഴുത, സങ്കരജാതി
- mule in Kannada
- ಹೇಸರಗತ್ತೆ, ದಡ್ಡ, ಮಡೆಯ, ಶತಮೂರ್ಖ
- mule in Punjabi
- ਖੱਚਰ khaccar
- mule in Gujarati
- ખચ્ચર khaccar
- mule in Odia
- ଖଚ୍ଚର khaccara
- mule in Sanskrit
- खर khara
- mule in Assamese
- খচ্চৰ khossor
- mule in Nepali
- खच्चर
- mule in Pashto
- کچره kačǝ́ra
- mule in Tagalog
- mula
- mule in Arabic
- بَغَل baḡal
- mule in Malay
- baghal
- mule in Indonesian
- bagal
- mule in Persian
- قاطر qâter
- mule in Thai
- ล่อ lɔ̂ɔ, ฬ่อ lɔ̂ɔ
- mule in Vietnamese
- la
- mule in Myanmar
- လား la:
- Dzongkha
- དྲེལ drel
Examples of mule in a sentence
- This Russian drink tastes foul, but it kicks like a mule.
- He stole an occasional glance as the mule again worked its way downfield.
- The tired mule flopped its ears forward and trudged on.
Synonyms of mule
Forms of mule
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | mules |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | mules |
| present participle | muling |
| past participle | muled |
| past | muled |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Mules |
Origin of mule
Inherited from Middle English mule, from Anglo-Norman mule (“she-mule”) and Old English mūl, both ultimately from Latin mūlus, from Proto-Indo-European *mukslós. Compare Late Latin muscellus (“young he-mule”), Old East Slavic мъшкъ (mŭškŭ, “mule”), Ancient Greek (Phocian) μυχλός (mukhlós, “he-ass”), and German Maul Maultier, Maulesel (through Latin).
From Middle French mule (“backless slipper”), from Medieval Latin mula (“slipper, shoe with a thick sole”), presumably from classical Latin mulleus, the dyed shoe of either the patricians or senators, from mūllus (“red mullet”) + -eus (“-y: forming adjectives”), from Ancient Greek μύλλος (múllos).
Various origins: * A nickname for a stubborn person, from Middle English mule (“mule”) or, alternatively, an occupational surname for a driver of pack animals. * Borrowed from Italian Mulè. * Borrowed from French Mule.
Words formed from mule
- credit mule
- development mule
- grin like a mule eating briars
- HM mule
- hung like a mule
- kick like a mule
- Missouri mule
- money mule
- Morgan's mule
- Moscow mule
- mule armadillo
- muleback
- mule bell
- mule deer
- mule fat
- mule fern
- mule kick
- mule killer
- muleless
- mulelike
- mule litter
- mule-litter
- mulelitter
- muleload
- muleman
- mule pulley
- Muleshoe
- muleskin
- muleskinner
- mule skinner
- mule spinner's cancer
- mule spinners' cancer
- mule-stubborn
- mule stubborn
- muleteer
- mule train
- mule twist
- muling
- mulish
- smile like a mule eating briars
- spinning mule
- stubborn as a mule
- test mule
- work like a mule
- zebra mule
- zebrule
Phrases with mule
- drug mule
- mule shoe
- mule bells
- mule kicks
- mule shoes
- mule trains
- mule killers
- mule litters
- mule pulleys
- mule skinners
- mule armadillos
- kicks like a mule
11 more phrasesFewer phrases
Words that rhyme with mule
42 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- spool
- doole
- pule
- yule
- buhl
- huemul
- Juul
- misrule
- poule
- rocking stool
- you'll
- 6-2-1 rule
- adverse interest rule
- aemule
- babul
- befool
- bool
- cagoule
- crool
- emule
- firefighter's rule
- gigajoule
- grool
- gule
- hool
- hydrocool
- joule
- kewl
- kilojoule
- megajoule
- mewl
- pasta fazool
- petajoule
- retool
- shul
- snool
- sool
- terajoule
- torchecul
- tulle
- uncool
- yottajoule
Questions about mule
- What does mule mean?
- Mule means the generally sterile male or female hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.
- What is mule in Hindi?
- Mule in Hindi is खच्चर (khaccar). See Mule meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is mule?
- Mule can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce mule?
- Mule is pronounced /mjuːl/.
- What is the plural of mule?
- The plural of mule is mules.
Words near mule in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mule (page history and authors); Mule (page history and authors); mule (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mule (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mule (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); खर (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); খচ্চৰ (Assamese) (page history and authors); mule (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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: En-au-mule.ogg.
Cite this entry: “mule.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mule. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.