Mustache

How to spell mustache

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce mustache

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mustache mean?

1. nounA strip of hair grown on a man's upper lip.

Mustache in a sentence

• He trimmed his mustache carefully before the wedding photos.

• A thick grey mustache covered most of his upper lip.

Where does mustache come from?

Language of origin: French

This word traces back to the ancient Greek mystax, which meant the upper lip and, by extension, the hair growing on it. It travelled into medieval Greek as moustakion, a diminutive form, and then into Italian as mostaccio before reaching French as moustache. English borrowed the French form in the late sixteenth century, originally keeping the French letters intact. The American spelling 'mustache' simply trims the unstressed 'ou' down to a single 'u', which is exactly the spot where writers hesitate: the first vowel sounds like a plain short 'u', yet the older British and Canadian form 'moustache' preserves the French 'ou'. Knowing the word passed through French and Italian explains why the second syllable is spelled '-tache' rather than '-tash'.

How the word is built

• mustach- (from Italian mostaccio, ultimately Greek mystax: upper lip, jaw)
• -e

British and American spelling

Mustache is the American spelling. British English spells it moustache.