mules

Noun

mule (plural mules)

1. 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
2. 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
3. (archaic) 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
4. (informal) 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

   Synonyms:

   donkey, bulldog

5. (slang) 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...

   Synonyms:

   drug mule

6. 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

See all 13 meanings of mule