Mules

How to spell mules

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mules

What does mules mean?

1. nounHybrid animals bred from a male donkey and a female horse, valued for strength and endurance.
2. nounBackless slippers or shoes that leave the heel uncovered.
3. nounPeople recruited to carry illegal goods, especially drugs, across borders for someone else.

Mules in a sentence

• The farmer used two mules to haul timber up the steep track.

• She slipped on a pair of velvet mules before answering the door.

• Customs officers had been trained to spot drug mules at the airport.

• Pack mules carried the climbers' supplies to the base camp.

• The boutique displayed leather mules next to the sandals.

• The cartel paid desperate travellers to act as mules.

Where does mules come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word descends from the Latin mulus, the name for the sterile hybrid produced when a male donkey is bred with a mare. Old English borrowed it as mul, and the spelling was later reshaped under the influence of Old French mule, which is why the modern form keeps the soft -ule ending. Because the animal is famously stubborn and patient, the word grew figurative branches: a backless slipper came to be called a mule, possibly from a separate Latin word mulleus for a reddish ceremonial shoe, and in twentieth-century slang a mule became a person who carries contraband for someone else. Across all of these the spelling has stayed remarkably steady, so the only real trap is remembering that the plural simply adds -s with no extra letters.

How the word is built

• mule (offspring of a donkey and a horse)
• -s (plural)