moustachemustachen.

Etymology: < Middle French, French moustache part of the beard which grows above a man's upper lip (1549; 1511 in barbette moustache ; found in French in singular and plural uses corresponding to both senses 1a and 1b), growth of hair, etc., resembling a moustache around the mouth of an animal (1575), lock of hair worn at the temples (1659 in source translated in quot. 1662 at sense 3), growth of hair above a woman's upper lip (1832) < Italian regional (Naples) mustaccio , variant of Italian mostaccio (see mustachio n.). Compare whisker n.¹ 4.In old moustache (see sense 5) after French vieille moustache, lit. ‘old moustache’ (1817 or earlier; compare moustache soldier (1745)). With sense 4 and moustache monkey (see Compounds), compare moustac n., moustached monkey n. at moustached adj. Compounds. In present British use the unaltered French spelling moustache is almost universal, but the earlier British dictionaries (Johnson, Walker, Smart) and most American dictionaries prefer the semi-anglicized form mustache, which predominates in American usage; exceptionally the third edition of Webster (1961) gives moustache as the principal headword spelling, but later editions of Webster's New Collegiate Dict. (from the 8th ed., 1973) give mustache. With regard to the pronunciation, N.E.D. (1908) s.v. states that British usage was divided between (u) /ʊ/ and (ɒ̆) /ə/ in the first syllable; and that in the United States (ɒ̆) /ə/ appeared to be general. In 19th-cent. sources the quantity of the vowel in the second syllable varies, but stress is regularly marked as falling on the second syllable.