Subscriber login


Forgot your password?

Library card login

Other

mule1

Pronunciation: /mjuːl/
Translate mule | into French | into German | into Italian | into Spanish
Definition of mule

noun

  • 1the offspring of a donkey and a horse (strictly, a male donkey and a female horse), typically sterile and used as a beast of burden. Compare with hinny1.
  • an obstinate person.
  • informal a courier for illegal drugs.
  • 2a hybrid plant or animal, especially a sterile one.
  • any of several standard cross-bred varieties of sheep.
  • 3 (also spinning mule) a kind of spinning machine producing yarn on spindles, invented by Samuel Crompton in 1779.
  • 4a small tractor or locomotive, typically one that is electrically powered.
  • 5a coin with the obverse and reverse of designs not originally intended to be used together.

Origin:

Old English mūl, probably of Germanic origin, from Latin mulus, mula; reinforced in Middle English by Old French mule

mule in other Oxford dictionaries

Definition of mule in the US English dictionary