mouses

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of mouse in the computing sense; less common than mice.

   The store displayed a dozen wireless mouses near the keyboards.

   Gamers often keep spare mouses on hand during tournaments.

   Note

   For the device, the regular ending carries no nonstandard label, unlike its use for the animal. Even so, mice remains the more frequent plural for the peripheral, and both forms are in use. If a passage also mentions the rodent plural, using mice for both avoids an awkward mismatch.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of mouse.

   The farmer's cat mouses through the grain store at dusk.

   Whenever the kitchen quiets down, the kitten mouses behind the cabinets.

   Note

   An ordinary regular verb ending, so nothing about it is disputed. A cat mouses in the barn, someone mouses around the house, a user mouses across the screen, and a sailor mouses a hook shut with marline or wire. Only that hook-binding use takes a direct object. The same spelling also works as a noun, where it becomes the nonstandard rodent plural, so context tells you which one you are reading.

3. 3
   nounnonstandard

   Nonstandard plural of mouse for the animal; the standard plural is mice.

   Then / He did the same thing / To the other Whos’ houses / Leaving crumbs / Much too small / For the other Whos’ mouses!

   1957, Dr. Seuss [pseudonym; Theodor Seuss Geisel], How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

   Fobo chuckled, and he said, in American, “He won’t keep that up long. What does he think we Siddo are? A bunch of mouses?”

   1979, Philip José Farmer, The Lovers

   Note

   Used for the animal, the regular ending marks a voice rather than a mistake on the writer's part. Dr. Seuss rhymes it with houses in How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1957). In Philip José Farmer's The Lovers (1979), an alien speaking American says it, and in Chris Riddell's Goth Girl and the Ghost of a Mouse (2013), it signals broken English. In your own prose, write mice.

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