Etymograph

English

mush

Mush may come from Middle English mos ‘mush, pulp, porridge’.

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500mos‘mush, pulp, porridge’uncertain
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1855mush

attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed

Earlier history uncertain.

Lineage

  1. Middle Englishc. 1150–1500mos‘mush, pulp, porridge’uncertain
  2. Englishearliest quotation 1855mush

Earliest quotation: 1855, Frederick Douglass, New York; Auburn: “His food is of the coarsest kind, consisting for…”

The story

Probably a variant of mash, or from a dialectal variant of Middle English mos (‘mush, pulp, porridge’); compare Middle English appelmos (‘applesauce’), from Old English mōs (‘food, victuals, porridge, mush’), from Proto-West Germanic *mōs, from Proto-Germanic *mōsą (‘porridge, food’), from Proto-Indo-European *meh₂d- (‘wet, fat, dripping’).

Linked words

through Middle English mos ‘mush, pulp, porridge’

moss

Another origin of mush

  1. Old High Germanc. 750–1050mus‘a pap’
  2. Old High German, derivedc. 750–1050muos‘porridge, mush, mash’
  3. Englishtodaymush

Another origin of mush

  1. Frenchc. 1600–presentmarche‘march’
  2. Englishtodaymush

Believed to be a contraction of mush on, from Michif, in turn a corruption of French marche (‘march’) or marchons!, the cry of voyageurs and coureurs de bois to their dogs. Marche and marchons are respectively the second-person singular and first-person plural imperative forms of marcher (‘to move; to travel; to walk’), from Middle French marcher, from Old French marchier, from Frankish *markōn, ultimately from Proto-Germanic *markōną (‘to mark; to notice’).

Another origin of mush

  1. Proto-Indo-Europeanc. 4500–2500 BCE*mon-‘man, human being’reconstructed
  2. Proto-Indo-European, derivedc. 4500–2500 BCE*mon-us-i-yōsreconstructed
  3. Proto-Indo-Iranianc. 2500–1800 BCE*manušíyasreconstructed
  4. Sanskritc. 1500–500 BCEमनुष्यmanuṣya‘human being, man’
  5. Romanimodernmursh‘Anglicized form of murś (“man”)’
  6. Angloromanimodernmush‘man’
  7. Englishtodaysame form

Today it means

noun A somewhat liquid mess, often of food; a soft or semisolid substance.

Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.

Etymograph / Middle English mos / mush

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