Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use mule in a sentence

40 example sentences · noun, verb

Mule means the generally sterile male or female hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse. Example: “This Russian drink tastes foul, but it kicks like a mule.”

Examples of mule by meaning

nounThe 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

nounThe 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

nounA 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

nounA 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...
  • 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

nounA 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

verbTo smuggle (illegal drugs).

  • 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

nounAny 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
  • Riddle wore a blush pink mini dress by Patou, paired with matching strawberry-adorned mules (a nod to the tournament’s well-known strawberry and cream dish) and a red Chanel purse.2025 July 2, Yola Mzizi, “With All Eyes on Them, a ‘WAG’ Style Emerges”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

More sentences with mule

  • This Russian drink tastes foul, but it kicks like a mule.From the entry kick like a mule
  • He stole an occasional glance as the mule again worked its way downfield.From the entry downfield
  • The tired mule flopped its ears forward and trudged on.From the entry flop
  • Singapore plans to cane scammers and scam mules, with mandatory caning of at least six strokes for scammers and discretionary caning for mules.From the entry stroke
  • Their mules were clearly veterans. They seemed to know what to do even better than the teenage farmhand who was driving the team.From the entry veteran
  • Zendaya’s character is now working as a drug mule for Alamo Brown, a ruthless strip club boss.2026 April 29, Louis Staples, “Tradwives, sugar babies and OnlyFans: Euphoria’s misogyny feels like the manosphere’s wet dream”, in The…. From the entry drug mule
  • Aristotle used vernacular names or names borrowed from terrestrial animals, such as mule, wolf or “sea toad”2023, G DeBucquet, “Consumer Perceptions of “Fish” Food”, in Current Challenges for the Aquatic Products. From the entry sea toad
  • Fraudsters known as “herders” recruit money mules, creating vast webs of linked online accounts.2020 December 8, Claer Barrett, “Could your child be recruited as a money mule?”, in Financial Times. From the entry money mule
  • Pink satin prom pumps lie under heavy studded black clompers; yellow suede midi-boots trample wafer-thin Blahnik mules.2009 June 4, Cintra Wilson, “Choose a Shoe, Any Shoe, and Hold On”, in New York Times. From the entry clomper
  • Blade shearers could shear, crutch, mules or dag sheep anywhere they were needed.2007, Graeme R. Quick, Remarkable Australian Farm Machines: Ingenuity on the Land. From the entry dag
  • Too many of my men ride rounseys, drays, and mules against foes mounted on coursers and destriers.2000 August 8, George R[aymond] R[ichard] Martin, “Arya [Stark]”, in A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire; 3), London: Voyager…. From the entry rouncy
  • Janie's story of personal growth may be charted as one that travels from mules to muliebrity.1997 spring, Julie A. Haurykiewicz, “From Mules to Muliebrity: Speech and Silence in Their Eyes Were Watching God”, in Southern Literary…. From the entry muliebrity
  • “He handles that pallet like it was a mule,” McCoy undertoned, passing Mason.1984, Greg Bear, chapter 11, in Corona, Simon and Schuster, published 2000. From the entry undertone
  • I have been working like a dam mule this morning and just found time to kite you.1966, Rose Giallombardo, Society of Women: A Study of a Women’s Prison, New York, N.Y.: John Wiley & Sons, →OCLC, page 236. From the entry kite
  • The Americans had Hoover Wagons, which were engineless or permanently out-of-gas automobiles drawn by mules or horses.1961, Ralph Allen, Ordeal by Fire: Canada, 1910-1945, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. From the entry Hoover wagon
  • The following morning Jules's uncle accompanied him, ready to unhoof the wicked mule punch.1956, Lew X. Lansworth, Over the River Charlie: a novel, page 116. From the entry unhoof
  • They love to play, They are mule stubborn, but not disobedient.1955, John A. Saylor, M.D., Time: The Offended Bulldog, page 8. From the entry mule-stubborn
  • The mules raced along like the wind, and when daylight came they saw why.1924, Agatha Christie, The Man in the Brown Suit. From the entry inspan
  • I'm not going to let any mule show more spunk than me.”1920 August, Edward Leonard, "Old Zeke′s Mule", Boys′ Life, p. 55. From the entry spunk
  • Teams of about seven pairs of horses, or mules, or traction engines, are used.1914 April, W[illard] W[ebster] Eggleston, “A Trip to Stanislaus Forest, California. (Abstract.)”, in Bulletin, number 9, Burlington, Vt.…. From the entry wheelhorse
  • And last but not least, the Missouri mule is also known the world over.1910, Journeymen Horseshoers' International Union of the United States and Canada (publisher), International Horseshoers' Monthly…. From the entry Missouri mule
  • They are mounting him for the mule race will be run upon the sands.1907, John Millington Synge, “The Playboy of the Western World”, in Dublin and London, Maunsel, published 1911, Act III, pp. 93-94. From the entry winkered
  • But premature darkness began to mistify distant objects before we had the mules out of the corral.1904, Field and Stream, page 1023. From the entry mistify
  • The driver by a single jerk guides the horses or mules.1904 September 9, H. W. McManus, “In the West”, in The Black Hills Union and Western Stock Review, Rapid City, S.Dak., page 1. From the entry gee string
  • Cattle-dung where fuel failed; Water where the mules had staled; And sackcloth for their raiment.1903, Rudyard Kipling, Five Nations, section 150. From the entry stale
  • First a mule drops, but the tall, gaunt-featured, turbaned panthans stride on.1900, Archibald Clavering Gunter, Tangled Flags: A Novel, page 223. From the entry panthan
  • I was painting marigold orange onto the back of an alebrije that looked a little like a mule deer.2022, Anna-Marie McLemore, Lakelore. From the entry alebrije
  • Plus, his ever-increasing rake of mules were outgrowing the small parcel of acreage he had inherited in Tennessee.2020, Barbara L. Wyckoff, Who Was Victoria Silkee. From the entry rake
  • Why yessuh I knows how to treat a mule too.2013, Robert Ostertag, Cold Trail in the Bitterroots, page 64. From the entry yessuh

Meaning of mule

  1. noun The generally sterile male or female hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.
  2. noun The generally sterile hybrid offspring of any two species of animals.
  3. noun A hybrid plant.

Full definition of mule

Questions about mule in a sentence

How do you use mule in a sentence?
Mule is used as a noun and verb. For example: “This Russian drink tastes foul, but it kicks like a mule.”
What is a short sentence with mule?
“The tired mule flopped its ears forward and trudged on.”
What does mule mean?
Mule means the generally sterile male or female hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mule (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this page: “How to use mule in a sentence.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/sentences/mule. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.