mouser
noun/ˈmaʊzə(ɹ)/ · /ˈmaʊsə(ɹ)/
Etymology From Middle English mousere (“a hunter of mice”), equivalent to mouse + -er (agent noun suffix) or + -er (occupational suffix). The “moustache” sense is apparently an extended usage (i.e., a cat’s whiskers, jocularly transferred to human beings), possibly with influence from moustache.
1
A cat that catches mice, kept specifically for the purpose.
- He was a pretty man, well upstanding, with great shoulders on him and his hair was fair and fine and he had a broad brow and a gey bit coulter of a nose and he twisted his mouser ends up with wax like that creature the German Kaiser […].1932, Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Sunset Song (A Scots Quair), Polygon, published 2006, page 20:
- Related terms
- the official resident cat at 10 Downing Street