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Glite Dictionary
🖱️ Using a mouse 🐭 Catching mice
mousing

mousing

3.7
An activity of hunting and catching small animals that often live in houses or fields, usually done by cats
  • noun
  • /ˈmaʊsɪŋ/
translation icon : caza de ratones
  • Her cat has excellent mousing skills; it often brings home mice as gifts.
  • mousing cat

Examples

  • Farmers appreciate having a mousing cat in the barn to keep the rodent population under control.

  • A Falcon telling her pride or place was a mousing owl hooked and killed it.

  • The mousing cat quietly stalked through the grass, searching for mice to catch.

Synonyms

hunting
vsmousing
43 2.2

Looking carefully to find something or someone

focuses on catching small rodents often by cats or other predators

How Active

predation
  • Specialized
6 6.8
mousing
3.7

Surface Forms

mousing singular
mousings plural

Morphology

mousing = mouse (transparent) = mouse + ing

Standard gerund formation from the verb 'mouse' meaning 'to hunt mice'; learners who know the verb can infer the noun 'mousing'.

Etymology

Mousing comes from the word mouse, the 'small animal', plus the ending -ing for 'action'. It originally meant the act of catching or hunting mice, so when a cat is good at mousing it is searching for and catching mice.