MULE

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does mule mean? 

• MULE (noun)
  The noun MULE has 2 senses:

1. hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse; usually sterile

2. a slipper that has no fitting around the heel

  Familiarity information: MULE used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• MULE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Hybrid offspring of a male donkey and a female horse; usually sterile

Classified under:

Nouns denoting animals

Hypernyms ("mule" is a kind of...):

equid; equine (hoofed mammals having slender legs and a flat coat with a narrow mane along the back of the neck)

Holonyms ("mule" is a member of...):

Equus; genus Equus (type genus of the Equidae: only surviving genus of the family Equidae)

Derivation:

muleteer (a worker who drives mules)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A slipper that has no fitting around the heel

Classified under:

Nouns denoting man-made objects

Synonyms:

mule; scuff

Hypernyms ("mule" is a kind of...):

carpet slipper; slipper (low footwear that can be slipped on and off easily; usually worn indoors)

 Context examples 

We put it on a sutler's mule, and bore it after the army.

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

My mule was brought to the door, and I resolved to ascend to the summit of Montanvert.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

All my retinue was that poor lad for an interpreter, whom I persuaded into my service, and, at my humble request, we had each of us a mule to ride on.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Mule deer mothers are in sync with their environment, with reproduction patterns that closely match the cycles of plant growth in their habitat.

(Tracking Deer by NASA Satellite, NASA)

B mallei is found in contaminated soil, causes Glanders disease in horses, mules, donkeys, and humans, and has been developed and used as a biological weapon by the Germans, Russians and Japanese.

(Burkholderia mallei, NCI Thesaurus)

"They ain't big enough to stand the strain. I can hit like a mule with my arms and shoulders. They are too strong, an' when I smash a man on the jaw the hands get smashed, too."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

More than one captain made up his mind then and there that his "cobble" or his "mule," as they term the different classes of boats, would remain in the harbour till the storm had passed.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

I have been up on St. John’s Common upon a dark night, and, lying among the bracken, I have seen as many as seventy mules and a man at the head of each go flitting past me as silently as trout in a stream.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Much could not be hoped from the traffic of even the busiest part of Highbury;—Mr. Perry walking hastily by, Mr. William Cox letting himself in at the office-door, Mr. Cole's carriage-horses returning from exercise, or a stray letter-boy on an obstinate mule, were the liveliest objects she could presume to expect; and when her eyes fell only on the butcher with his tray, a tidy old woman travelling homewards from shop with her full basket, two curs quarrelling over a dirty bone, and a string of dawdling children round the baker's little bow-window eyeing the gingerbread, she knew she had no reason to complain, and was amused enough; quite enough still to stand at the door.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

As this horse approached, and as I watched for it to appear through the dusk, I remembered certain of Bessie's tales, wherein figured a North-of-England spirit called a Gytrash, which, in the form of horse, mule, or large dog, haunted solitary ways, and sometimes came upon belated travellers, as this horse was now coming upon me.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)