CLAIM / COUNTERCLAIM / LIMITRECORD 44

DISPUTE
RECORD.

One scholarly question. Every attached source. The present editorial state, without pretending the last word has been written.

resolvedestablished

Was English mouse borrowed from Latin mūs?

No. Old English mūs continues a Germanic branch; Latin mūs is a cognate parallel branch.

WORD UNDER REVIEWDISPUTE 44

mouse

/maʊs/ · noun

The inherited English name of the small rodent, continued from Old English mūs and the reconstructed Indo-European *mūs- family.

DIRECT CLAIM EVIDENCE

2 SOURCES WITH A STANCE

A citation is not a vote. Each record says whether the work supports, challenges, contradicts, or contextualizes the position—and identifies the exact locus used.

SOURCE 01supportshistorical dictionary

Mouse — Word History

Places English mouse in the Germanic branch rather than deriving it from Latin.

Germanic origin and cognates

AUTHOR / EDITOR: American Heritage Dictionary Editors
YEAR: 2026
PUBLISHER: HarperCollins

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SOURCE 02contextscholarly lexicon

Indo-European Lexicon: mūs-

Places Germanic and Latin forms as parallel reflexes of the reconstructed family.

Germanic comparanda

AUTHOR / EDITOR: University of Texas Linguistics Research Center
YEAR: 2026
PUBLISHER: University of Texas at Austin

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02 / EDITORIAL STATE

THE CURRENT RECORD IS RESOLVED.

CONFIDENCE: established
STATUS: resolved
LEGACY SOURCE SUMMARY: American Heritage and the University of Texas lexicon place the English and Latin forms in parallel branches of the same reconstructed family.

RESOLUTION NOTE

The graph joins English and Latin only at PIE *mūs-, never by a false Latin-to-English edge.

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