Definition
nounThe generally sterile male or female hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse.
nounThe generally sterile hybrid offspring of any two species of animals.
Sentence Examples
The harassed mule got his back up and began kicking up dust.
If you mate a horse with an ass you will get a mule.
The old man loaded his mule with bags full of sand.
Word Origin & History
Etymology tree
substratebor.?
Proto-Italic *musklos?
Latin mūlus
Proto-Indo-European *-h₂
Proto-Indo-European *-eh₂
Proto-Italic *-ā
Latin -a
Latin mūla
Anglo-Norman mulebor.
▲
Latin mūlusbor.
Proto-West Germanic *mūl
Old English mūl
Middle English mule
English mule
Inherited from Middle English mule, from Anglo-Norman mule (“she-mule”) and Old English mūl, both ultimately from Latin mūlus, from Proto-Indo-European *mukslós. Compare Late Latin muscellus (“young he-mule”), Old East Slavic мъшкъ (mŭškŭ, “mule”), Ancient Greek (Phocian) μυχλός (mukhlós, “he-ass”), and German Maul Maultier, Maulesel (through Latin).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"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:
"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:
"Vegetable mules supply an irrefragable argument in favour of the sexual system of botany."
— 1789, Erasmus Darwin, The Loves of the Plants, J. Johnson, page 149:
"The most extraordinary mule, however, that is asserted to have been produced on the Continent, is a cross between the cabbage and horse-radish, which Monsieur Sageret reports that he has obtained […]"
— 1837, William Herbert, Amaryllidaceæ: Preceded by an Attempt to Arrange the Monocotyledonous Orders, and Followed by a Treatise on Cross-bred Vegetables, and Supplement, page 353:
""Where in the hell do you think I learned to be such a mule?”"
— 2005, Dorothea Benton Frank, Isle of Palms, Penguin, →ISBN: