# mole

Pronunciation: say "MOHL" US /mol/, UK /məʊl/

## Noun

1. A small burrowing, insect-eating mammal of the family Talpidae.
   - Simple: A small furry animal that digs tunnels underground and eats insects.
   - _The gardener set traps after a mole tunneled beneath the vegetable beds._
   - _Several species of mole are nearly blind, relying on touch to navigate underground._
2. A pigmented spot on the skin, sometimes slightly raised or hairy; a nevus.
   - Simple: A small dark spot on the skin that is sometimes slightly raised or has hairs.
   - _A new mole appeared on her shoulder over the summer._
   - _Dermatologists advise watching any mole that changes shape or color._
3. A spy or secret informant who works inside an organization, such as a government agency, company or criminal gang, and passes its secrets to outsiders.
   - Simple: Someone inside a group who secretly passes its information to people outside it.
   - _Counterintelligence officers spent months hunting the mole inside their ranks._
   - _The novel's plot turns on a mole buried deep within the embassy._
4. The SI base unit of amount of substance, equal to exactly 6.02214076×10²³ elementary entities such as atoms or molecules.
   - Simple: A unit chemists use to count very large numbers of atoms or molecules.
   - _Chemists measured out one mole of sodium chloride for the reaction._
   - _A single mole of carbon-12 weighs almost exactly twelve grams._
5. A spicy Mexican or Central American sauce, especially one containing chocolate, used in cooking savory main dishes rather than desserts. (pronounced: say "MOH-lay" US /ˈmoʊleɪ/, UK /ˈməʊleɪ/)
   - Simple: A spicy Mexican sauce, often made with chili peppers and chocolate, used on main dishes.
   - _The restaurant's mole simmered with dried chilies, nuts, and dark chocolate._
   - _Guests ladled mole over turkey at the holiday table._
6. A burrowing rodent of the kind also called a mole-rat.
   - Simple: A digging rodent also known as a mole-rat.
7. A massive stone structure built out into water to serve as a pier, breakwater, or causeway between separated places.
   - Simple: A large, strong wall of stone built out into the water as a pier or barrier.
   - _Ships moored along the ancient mole that guarded the port._
   - _Engineers reinforced the mole after winter storms eroded its base._
8. An abnormal mass of tissue in the uterus from a failed pregnancy, especially a hydatidiform mole, in which placental tissue overgrows after faulty fertilization.
   - Simple: A lump of abnormal tissue that grows in the womb when a pregnancy goes wrong.
   - _An ultrasound showed a mole rather than a viable embryo._
   - _Surgeons evacuated the mole after she presented with abnormal bleeding._
9. A powered digging machine that bores tunnels or underground drains, or clears blocked buried pipes.
   - Simple: A machine that digs tunnels or drains underground, or clears blocked pipes under the ground.
   - _Workers guided the mole as it tunneled beneath the roadway to lay new pipe._
   - _The mole cleared decades of sediment from the buried storm drain._
11. A derogatory slang term for a woman, especially a gangster's girlfriend or a woman regarded as promiscuous. *(slang, Australia, New Zealand)*
   - Simple: An insulting slang word for a woman, sometimes a gangster's girlfriend.
   - _The gang leader paraded his mole through the nightclub._
   - _He got himself banned from the pub for calling the barmaid a cheap mole._

## Noun

10. A sheltered harbor or haven enclosed by a protecting breakwater. *(rare)*
   - Simple: A safe harbor that is protected by a stone breakwater.

## Other meanings

- (noun) An unlined underground drainage channel formed in the clay subsoil of farm fields by a mole plow.
- (noun) A massive ancient Roman mausoleum, built as a monumental tomb.

## Origin

**Meaning 2** — From Middle English mole, from Old English māl ("a mole, spot, mark, blemish"), going back through Proto-Germanic to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "dark, dirty" or "to soil." It is related to Scots mail ("spot, stain") and Gothic mail ("blemish").
**Meanings 1, 3, 6, 9** — From Middle English molle ("mole"), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *mulaz ("mole, salamander") and a Proto-Indo-European root. It is related to Dutch mol ("mole") and German Molch ("salamander, newt").
**Meaning 11** — The word started life as moll, which came from Moll, an archaic pet form of the name Mary. Two things then pushed it toward its present form: the spelling of mole in the sense "an internal spy", and the way /mɒl/ and /məʊl/ came to sound alike in Australian speech.
**Meanings 7, 10** — From French môle or Latin mōles ("mass, heap, rock").
**Meaning 4** — German Mol was the model, and English copied it as a calque. Its spelling, though, suggests a direct borrowing from molecule or from Latin moles, and Latin moles is in any case where both Mol and molecule ultimately come from.
**Meaning 8** — Latin mola ("millstone") gave French môle, and English took the word from French before the 20th century. The name refers to the growth being a hardened mass.
**Meaning 5** — Classical Nahuatl mōlli, meaning "sauce, stew, something ground", passed into Spanish as mole, the source of the English word.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/mole (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).