▪ I. ˈmouse-hunt1 Obs. exc. dial.
Also 5 muse-hont.
[a. MDu. muushont weasel (mod.Du. muishond), f. muus mouse + hont dog (see hound n.); there may also have been a native word, f. mouse n. + hunt n.1]
a. A weasel. b. gen. An animal that hunts mice.
Halliwell (1847) gives ‘Mouse-hound, a weasel, East’. In S. African Du. muishond is a synonym of meerkat, whence the use in quot. 1850.
| 1481 Caxton Reynard (Arb.) 79 The squyrel, the musehont [printed -hout], the fychews. 1592 Shakes. Rom. & Jul. iv. iv. 11, I haue watcht ere now All night for lesse[r] cause, and nere beene sicke. La. I you haue bin a Mouse-hunt in your time. 1611 Cotgr. s.v. Geline, Qui naist de geline il aime a grater: Prov. Cat after kind good Mouse-hunt. 1641 Milton Reform. i. Wks. 1851 III. 31 Many of those that pretend to be great Rabbies in these studies..have bin but the Ferrets and Moushunts of an Index. [1850 R. G. Cumming Hunter's Life S. Afr. (ed. 2) I. 102 The whole ground was undermined with the holes of colonies of meercat or mouse-hunts.] |
▪ II. mouse-hunt2
[hunt n.2]
A hunt for mice.
| 1828–32 in Webster. 1975 Country Life 27 Mar. 761/1 Our adopted cat..no longer seems to want to be off on a nocturnal mousehunt. |