musth

/mʌst/

musth noun: chiefly preceded by in or on: the state each year during which a male animal (usually a camel or an elephant) exhibits increased aggressiveness and sexual activity due to a high level of testosterone.

Image: Bernard DUPONT from FRANCE, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

musth (countable and uncountable, plural musths)

(also, attributive, uncountable) Chiefly preceded by in or on: the state each year during which a male animal (usually a camel or an elephant) exhibits increased aggressiveness and sexual activity due to a high level of testosterone.
- The Taroos, or elephant catchers, having marked down a wild herd of 300 or 400 elephants, the following preparations are made. About 200 Taroos collect together, mounted upon elephants, and accompanied by two large "taking elephants," highly fed, and kept always musth, (sensual) and when in that...1849 October, T. S., “Sporting Scenes in Nepaul”, in Colburn’s United Service Magazine, and Naval and Military Journal, part III, London: H. Hurst, […], →OCLC, page 340
- No animal in the world is so dangerous as an elephant in must.1871, Charles Darwin, “Secondary Sexual Characters of Mammals”, in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex. […], volume II, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, Part II (Sexual Selection)...
(countable) An instance of this.

musth meaning in Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam and Kannada

musth in Tamil

state each year during which a male animal exhibits increased aggressiveness and sexual activity; an instance of this: களி kaḷi, மதநீர் matanīr, தானம் tāṉam, மதம் matam

musth in Telugu

state each year during which a male animal exhibits increased aggressiveness and sexual activity; an instance of this: మదము madamu

musth in Malayalam

state each year during which a male animal exhibits increased aggressiveness and sexual activity; an instance of this: മദം madaṁ

musth in Kannada

state each year during which a male animal exhibits increased aggressiveness and sexual activity; an instance of this: ಮದ mada

More languagesFewer languages

musth in Indonesian: musth
musth in Persian: مستی فیل
musth in Thai: การตกมัน

Examples of musth in a sentence

I couldn't see the driver, and across my mind it rushed / That the Commissariat elephant had suddenly gone musth.1887, Rudyard Kipling, “[Departmental Ditties] Municipal”, in Departmental Ditties and Barrack-room Ballads (The Complete Works of Rudyard...
I have seen men deal with enraged elephants and live; but never was man yet born of woman that met my lord the elephant in his musth and lived to tell of the taming.1893, Rudyard Kipling, “My Lord the Elephant”, in Many Inventions, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., →OCLC, page 44:
[T]he first officer told us about the musths.1967 May, W. Gurnee Dyer, “Elephant Work in South India: A Traveler’s Account of the Gainful Employment of Elephas maximus”, in James K....
The late sun reflecting on the moisture at his temporal gland shows he is in musth, and mad with lust, and we have inadvertently separated him from the breeding cows of his desire.2006, Peter Godwin, “December 2003”, in When a Crocodile Eats the Sun: A Memoir of Africa, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.; Boston...

Forms of musth

plural	musths
alternative form	must

Origin of musth

Borrowed from Hindustani (Hindi मस्त (mast) / Urdu مَسْت (mast, “drunk, intoxicated; lustful”); and also from Middle Hindi مَسْت (mst /⁠mast⁠/)), and from its etymon Classical Persian مَسْت (mast, “(adjective) drunk, intoxicated; (literary) in rut; of an elephant: in musth; (noun) drunkard”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- (“to be wet; to become wet”).

Words formed from musth

musthy
musty

Words that rhyme with musth

25 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about musth

What does musth mean?: Musth means chiefly preceded by in or on: the state each year during which a male animal (usually a camel or an elephant) exhibits increased aggressiveness and sexual activity due to a high level of testosterone.
What is musth in Tamil?: Musth in Tamil is களி (kaḷi), மதநீர் (matanīr), தானம் (tāṉam). See Musth meaning in Tamil.
How do you use musth in a sentence?: I couldn't see the driver, and across my mind it rushed / That the Commissariat elephant had suddenly gone musth.
What part of speech is musth?: Musth is a noun.
How do you pronounce musth?: Musth is pronounced /mʌst/ (UK).
What is the plural of musth?: The plural of musth is musths.

Words near musth in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: musth (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: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-musth.wav, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Naomi Persephone Amethyst (NaomiAmethyst)-musth.wav.

Cite this entry: “musth.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/musth. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.