mice
/maɪs/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.09 in modern English
8
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To be distracted or inattentive (possibly alluding to a cat being distracted by a mouse).
Example Sentences
- "That cat's mysin, he doesn't see the dog coming."
- "A breakfast diner might describe an incident with someone who was "not too tightly wrapped". Or not wanting to waste time on someone who was always "micin". Another breakfast guest might explode with "what'chu mean?", only to be told half-jokingly, “Bie ... shut yor mouth”."
Etymology
From Middle English mys, mice, muis, mise, mis, from Old English mȳs (“mice”), from an umlauted form of Proto-Germanic *mūsiz (“mice”), nominative and vocative plural of Proto-Germanic *mūs (“mouse”). Compare Scots mice, mise, myse, myce (“mice”), West Frisian mûzen (“mice”), Dutch muizen (“mice”), German Mäuse (“mice”), Swedish möss (“mice”), Faroese mýs (“mice”), Icelandic mýs (“mice”). More at mouse.