mush

Probably a variant of mash, or from a dialectal variant of Middle English mos (“mush, pulp, porridge”); compare Middle English appelmos (“applesauce”)}}, from Old English mōs (“food, victuals, porridge, mush”), from Proto-Germanic *mōsą (“porridge, food”), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- (“wet, fat, dripping”). Cognate with Scots moosh (“mush”), Dutch moes (“pulp, mush, porridge”), German Mus (“jam, puree, mush”), Swedish mos (“pulp, mash, mush”). See also moose.

• (UK, US) enPR: mŭsh, IPA^(key): /mʌʃ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /mʊʃ/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

  ,

  Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌʃ
• Rhymes: -ʊʃ

mush (countable and uncountable, plural mushes)

1. A somewhat liquid mess, often of food; a soft or semisolid substance.
   • 1855, Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom Chapter 1

     His food is of the coarsest kind, consisting for the most part of cornmeal mush, which often finds its way from the wooden tray to his mouth in an oyster shell.

2. (radio) A mixture of noise produced by the harmonics of continuous-wave stations.
3. (surfing) The foam of a breaker.
   • 2008, Bucky McMahon, Night Diver (page 80)

     And Rincon was all about surfing. Flash back thirty-odd years, to a skinny kid on a Styrofoam belly-board, pin-wheeling out into the mush of Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

mush (third-person singular simple present mushes, present participle mushing, simple past and past participle mushed)

1. To squish so as to break into smaller pieces or to combine with something else.

   He mushed the ingredients together.

• apple-mush
• mushy

• mash
• moosh

From Old High German muos and Goidelic mus (“a pap”) or muss (“a porridge”), or any thick preparation of fruit.

• (UK, US) enPR: mŭsh, IPA^(key): /mʌʃ/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

  ,

  Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌʃ

mush (uncountable)

1. A food comprising cracked or rolled grains cooked in water or milk; porridge.
2. (rural USA) Cornmeal cooked in water and served as a porridge or as a thick sidedish like grits or mashed potatoes.

Believed to be a contraction of mush on, from Michif, in turn a corruption of French marchons! and marche!, the cry of the voyageurs and coureurs de bois to their dogs.

• (UK, US) enPR: mŭsh, IPA^(key): /mʌʃ/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

  ,

  Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌʃ

mush

1. A directive given (usually to dogs or a horse) to start moving, or to move faster.

• musher

mush (plural mushes)

1. A walk, especially across the snow with dogs.

mush (third-person singular simple present mushes, present participle mushing, simple past and past participle mushed)

1. (intransitive) To walk, especially across the snow with dogs.
2. (transitive) To drive dogs, usually pulling a sled, across the snow.
   • 1910, Jack London, Burning Daylight, part 1 chapter 4:

     Together the two men loaded and lashed the sled. They warmed their hands for the last time, pulled on their mittens, and mushed the dogs over the bank and down to the river-trail.

Simple contraction of mushroom.

• (UK, US) enPR: mŭsh, IPA^(key): /mʌʃ/

• Audio (UK)

  (file)

  ,

  Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌʃ

mush (plural mushes)

1. (Quebec, slang) magic mushrooms

• shroom (slang)

From Angloromani mush (“man”), from Romani mursh, from Sanskrit मनुष्य (manuṣya, “human being, man”).

• (UK) enPR: mo͝osh, IPA^(key): /mʊʃ/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ʊʃ

mush (plural mushes)

1. (British slang, chiefly Southern England) A form of address to a man.

   • "'Oy, mush! Get out of it!'
     That's what we'd say
     Barging the locals
     Out of the way"
     — MAUREEN AND DOREEN AND NOREEN AND ME, Peculiar Poems,
   • "When I'm around it's not uncommon for someone to call me and say :'Oy mush, get your bum over here and give us a hand.'" — THE ONCE AND FUTURE KING: In Which King Arthur Uther Pendragon Grants An Interview

2. (British slang, chiefly Northern England, Australia) The face

• (form of address to a man): mate (UK), pal (especially US)
• (the face): mug

• Take Our Word for It Issue 101, accessed on 2005-05-09

Compare French moucheter (“to cut with small cuts”).

mush (third-person singular simple present mushes, present participle mushing, simple past and past participle mushed)

1. (transitive) To notch, cut, or indent (cloth, etc.) with a stamp.

• Shum, hums

From Romani mursh, from Sanskrit मनुष्य (manuṣya, “human being, man”).

mush

1. man

• → English: mush