Mule

How to spell mule

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mule

What does mule mean?

1. nounThe hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse, often used as a sturdy pack animal.
2. nounA backless shoe or slipper that covers only the front of the foot.
3. nounA person who carries or smuggles illicit goods or drugs for someone else.

Mule in a sentence

• The farmer loaded the supplies onto a patient mule.

• She slipped on a leather mule and padded into the kitchen.

• Customs officers arrested the courier acting as a drug mule.

• A mule can carry heavy packs along steep mountain trails.

• The shop displayed a velvet mule with a low heel.

• The gang recruited a desperate traveller as a mule at the airport.

Where does mule come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word descends from the Latin mulus, the name for the hybrid animal produced when a male donkey is crossed with a female horse. It reached English in the Old English period as mul, almost certainly carried in through everyday contact with Latin-speaking traders and the Church, since the mule was a prized beast of burden across the Roman world. Because mules are famously sterile and stubborn, the word soon gathered figurative uses, lending itself to the spinning mule, a hybrid 18th century machine that combined two earlier inventions, and later to a 'mule', a backless shoe that the foot only partly occupies. In modern slang it also names a person who smuggles goods or drugs, the human equivalent of a loaded pack animal. The spelling stays mercifully simple and regular, with the long 'u' sound that traces straight back to the Latin vowel.

How the word is built

• mule (from Latin mulus, a hybrid pack animal)