mouseholen.
/ˈmaʊshəʊl/, U.S. /ˈmaʊsˌ(h)oʊl/ A hole used or made by a mouse for habitation or passage; a very small hole. Also figurative.
ΘΚΠ
the world > space > relative position > condition of being open or not closed > an opening or aperture > [noun] > opening which may be passed through > (of size) used by specific animal
mouseholec1475
cat-holea1625
pigeonhole1737
the world > animals > mammals > group Unguiculata or clawed mammal > order Rodentia or rodent > superfamily Myomorpha (mouse, rat, vole, or hamster) > [noun] > family Muridae > genus Mus or mouse > hole or place frequented by
mouseholec1475
mousery1888
c1475 Medit. Life & Passion of Christ (Rawl.) in C. Horstmann Yorkshire Writers (1895) I. 118 (MED) Cowardis and hertles..sal be so stade þat þai sal wille crepe in a moushool.
?c1475 Catholicon Anglicum (BL Add. 15562) f. 83 A mowse [1483 BL Add. 89074 Mosse] hole, amfractus.
c1500 (?a1475) Assembly of Gods (1896) 1953 (MED) For feere..I wold haue cropyn in a mouse hoole.
1582 R. Mulcaster 1st Pt. Elementarie xxv. 202 Mousehole.
1603 T. Dekker 1603: Wonderfull Yeare sig. E1 Not a creuis but was stopt, not a mouse-hole left open.
1679 T. Kirke Mod. Acct. Scotl. 10 Men, Women, and Children pigg altogether in a poor Mouse-hole of Mud.
1709 S. Centlivre Busie Body iii. iii. 32 Have you let a Man into my House?.. I'll not leave a Mousehole unsearch'd.
1793 J. Williams Serio-comic & Admonitory Epist. 18 Thus have I seen in pantry, hall, or entry, Grimalkin o'er a mouse-hole standing sentry.
1888 E. Eggleston Graysons xx. 216 Bob..liked this lurking for prey as a cat likes the watching at a mouse-hole.
1925 W. de la Mare Broomsticks 109 He never paid the smallest attention to mouse or mouse-hole or mousery.
1974 BP Shell Internat. Oct. 18/4 We pick up that drilling pipe over there in 30 feet sections and put it into what we call the ‘mousehole’.
1987 Sunday Express Mag. 31 May 68/2 Through the mousehole go Rupert and Margot onto a bridge.
2001 Irish Times (Electronic ed.) 5 May I watched and waited like a cat at a mouse hole for the right moment to arrive.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
mouseholev.
/ˈmaʊshəʊl/, U.S. /ˈmaʊsˌ(h)oʊl/ Chiefly Army slang.
1. intransitive. To escape into a mousehole; (also) to make a narrow passage or a tunnel; spec. (Army slang) to blast a hole in a wall in house-to-house fighting.
ΘΚΠ
the world > space > relative position > condition of being open or not closed > making holes or becoming holed > become or make perforated [verb (intransitive)] > make (a) hole(s) > through something > small
mousehole1950
1950 O. Nash Family Reunion (1951) 40 Little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.
1967 L. Deighton Expensive Place xx. 137 It was another half-hour before they had broken into the cellars..and then it took twenty minutes more to mousehole through into Datt's house.
2008 R. R. Kingsbury Eighteen-year-old Replacem. iv. 35 The platoon advanced from house to house by mouseholing through the walls..accomplished by blasting holes with a bazooka rocket or with TNT.
2. transitive. To make a mousehole in; to make a narrow passage or a tunnel into, frequently with explosives.
ΚΠ
1967 [see sense 1].
1993 Mother Earth News (Nexis) Oct. 45 I found that we had only three inches of aged insulation—much of it mouseholed or compacted—between ceiling joists in the attic floor.
2013 P. Caddick-Adams Monte Cassino i. 27 Most stone buildings were ‘mouseholed’ to enable their garrison to rush from one point to another, under cover.
Derivatives
ˈmouseholed adj.
ΘΚΠ
the world > space > shape > unevenness > condition or fact of receding > hollowness > [adjective] > full of cavities
leery1676
bladdery1798
vuggy1864
mouseholed1967
the world > space > shape > unevenness > condition or fact of receding > hollowness > [adjective] > hollowed > formed (as) by tunnelling
tunnelled1856
mouseholed1967
1967 L. Deighton Expensive Place xx. 138 Loiscau's men were moving up from the mouse-holed cellars.
2010 A. Bourret Mothers & Other Liars l. 124 She needs to put this warped, rotted, mouse-holed pie safe back together before she goes on trial.
ˈmouseholing n.
ΚΠ
1975 D. Featherstone Skirmish Wargaming 91 Once you'd taken the first house, mouseholing was the best way of driving the enemy out of the other houses.
1983 B. Powe Aberhart Summer xvi. 200 Norm had been with the First Brigade in Italy, and after Ortona and all the mouseholing house-to-house, he had gone crackers.
2004 A. O'Reilly Sound of Battle vi. 52 Street fighting was really house fighting, advancing by means of a technique called ‘mouseholing’.
This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).
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n.c1475
v.1950