mole1
noun məʊlmoʊl
1A small burrowing mammal with dark velvety fur, a long muzzle, and very small eyes, feeding mainly on worms, grubs, and other invertebrates.
Family Talpidae: several genera and species, including the European mole (Talpa europaea)
- The fur of moles is velvety and can lie equally well in any direction, which allows easy movement in the burrows backward as well as forwards.
- While bats are highly specialized for flight, they share anatomical characters with the Insectivora, the mammalian taxon that includes shrews and moles.
- Although moles feed on beneficial invertebrates as well as lawn pests, they rarely affect the populations of either.
- Even though we're on the edge of a major city, our yard is populated by a variety of mice, moles, squirrels, chipmunks and opossums.
- After I'd mowed the other day, a mole burrowed just under the surface of the lawn, leaving mounds of dirt and raised tunnel-bumps all over the place.
dialect mouldwarp, mouldywarp2A spy who gradually achieves an important position within the security defences of a country.
a well-placed mole was feeding them the names of operatives- That search for the supposed mole within CIA severely damaged the careers of some CIA officers.
- The lawyers were alerted by a journalist who said that Operation Torison was part of a major British intelligence gathering exercise involving a mole high up within the republican movement.
- He is told that there is a mole within his agency assisting with the plot.
- Unbeknownst to John J., he has been set up by a mole in the operation.
- He started an internal witchhunt that targeted exactly the wrong people, leaving KGB moles undisturbed.
- The FBI's polygraph program has similarly failed to yield any moles.
- The West stopped the old ways of planting moles and spooks deep into other societies for decades, so they could learn the cultures and linguistic nuances.
- There may have been a mole planted by the security services inside the terror cells in the country.
- He sends in his best officer, Jin, as a mole to infiltrate the group.
- What about a mole being a double agent who establishes a cover long before beginning espionage?
- But without effective compartmentation, a single, well-placed mole can trigger an intelligence leak of catastrophic proportions.
- The others that he talked to are incredulous at the thought of a mole because of their excellent anti-espionage program.
- Things get dangerous when the recruit is given the special assignment of rooting out a suspected mole that has infiltrated the Agency.
- This incident took place at the same time the FBI was conducting a top secret probe into whether there was a mole operating in the bureau.
- The police and the Triads plant a young mole in the other's camp, each of which rises to a position of influence over a period of years.
- Intelligence officials believe he was the mole.
- I don't know how they found out about her… but my gut instinct tells me that there is a mole in the CIA.
- He confessed that he had been a KGB mole for almost a decade and had provided the KGB with secrets that compromised more than 100 CIA operations in Russia.
- The report listed the Netherlands, Britain, Germany and France as places where the ring is operating and said that ‘it is trying today to plant moles in central Europe.’
- For more than one year they had sat on information regarding the alleged mole, compromising security, he said.
spy, agent, secret agent, double agent, undercover agent, operative, plant, infiltratorNorth American informal spookarchaic intelligencer- 2.1 Someone within an organization who anonymously betrays confidential information.the company is hunting for the mole who revealed details of planned job cuts
- In these days of public inquiries into just about anything, perhaps the Council ought to instigate one of its own to see if the Leeds Rhinos managed to insert a mole in the Bradford planning department.
- A councillor who owed £640 in rent arrears has called for the town hall mole who leaked information to the newspaper to be sacked.
- He is a dastardly turncoat Democratic mole, who betrayed the good people of this country for purely political reasons.
- All it takes is a leaked print of a film from a studio mole, or an advance copy from an Academy Award screener, or a filched workprint, and you have a pirated version ready to download.
- For £50,000 we will finger moles within your organisation.
- There must be a few liberal moles toiling anonymously inside the conservative news channel who can smuggle these things to the outside world, right?
- When we were in California last week, a mole told us that nothing upsets marketers more than revealing the real names of computer chips.
- It turned out that a mole within texted out the decision while the committee was still locked in discussion.
- Campaigners against the arms trade have accused their own chief paid organiser of being a mole secretly working on behalf of their opponents.
- The film was made after one of the BNP's Bradford organisers, Andy Sykes, decided to become a mole and helped reporter Jason Gwynne secure undercover footage.
- One of Asymmetrical Information's moles forwards this item from Businessweek.
- Not being originally of the community, the mole cannot really betray.
- I've been out in the trenches but my moles have kept me informed of all the relevant footy gossip as we approach finals time again.
- After all, if the mole was leaking information to hit men, then that was a potential risk to Harmony's safety, wasn't it?
- The combative Canadian businessman summarily ejected him from the board, blackening his character as a mole and provider of information to the tabloid press.
- I've good reason to believe there's a mole in our organization.
- A secret dossier from my mole in the company revealed a number of new spots, as well as old favourites, that I had missed on previous visits.
- By filling the government ranks with low-level corporate moles, the plan will make the corruption of government even easier.
- We knew that the opposition had a mole in our organization, but no one ever suspected that Albert was involved.
- But he didn't just quit, instead he became a mole at the heart of the movement, passing information to the anti-Fascist media.
Origin
Late Middle English: from the Germanic base of Middle Dutch and Middle Low German mol.
English has several unrelated words spelled mole. The oldest refers to a small blemish on the skin; in Old English this meant ‘a discoloured spot on cloth’. Next to appear was the mole that now means ‘a structure serving as a pier, breakwater, or causeway’, which goes back to Latin moles ‘mass’ (the earliest sense in English) which also lies behind demolish (mid 16th century). The mole that is a burrowing animal stayed underground until the later Middle Ages, and went under other names before then—in Old English it was a want, and then also a mouldwarp. The novels of John le Carré popularized the term mole for a spy who gradually achieves an important position within the security defences of a country: it first appeared in Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy in 1974. The world of espionage seems to have adopted the use from le Carré, rather than vice versa. See also mountain
Rhymes
barcarole, bole, bowl, cajole, coal, Cole, condole, console, control, dhole, dole, droll, enrol (US enroll), extol, foal, goal, hole, Joel, knoll, kohl, mol, Nicole, parol, parole, patrol, pole, poll, prole, rôle, roll, scroll, Seoul, shoal, skoal, sole, soul, stole, stroll, thole, Tirol, toad-in-the-hole, toll, troll, vole, whole
mole2
noun məʊlmoʊl
A small, often slightly raised blemish on the skin made dark by a high concentration of melanin.
a mole on her arm had not been there at the beginning of the summer- She added: ‘We are negotiating with a retailer so we can offer free screening clinics for moles in stores across the country.’
- Her knuckles were full of tiny fissures and wrinkles, the backs covered with freckles, moles and scars.
- This is where such characteristics as a facial twitch or a well-placed mole come in handy.
- It's essential that people monitor their moles and skin blemishes and report any changes in them.
- People in Bradford are being urged to get their moles checked at a skin cancer open day.
- He was unshaven with a mole on his right temple and was wearing a brown-coloured shirt.
- The signs of malignant change in a mole are very important to know.
- Melanoma first appears as a mole or skin discoloration.
- Because a shaved mole's ‘roots’ are left in the skin, the mole may grow back.
- He had pale, clear skin with nary a blemish, aside from a tiny mole on the corner of his full lower lip.
- The border of the mole should be smooth, with a clear distinction between skin and the mole.
- The only blemish is a small mole just under his left eye, but somehow that little imperfection makes him so much better looking.
- ‘Well, you have a mole right there,’ Caleb informed him, pointing to the little freckle.
- Coral, a pretty woman with olive-tan skin dotted with small moles and full plum lips, was dating a man seven years her senior.
- A nurse whose life was saved after a colleague spotted a cancerous mole on her leg helped to screen others at a skin cancer screening clinic yesterday.
- The first signs appear through existing markings on the skin, such as moles or freckles, which may become larger, redder or rougher.
- Although moles do often change slightly over a lifetime, that change should not occur over months or years.
- She stares in the mirror, scrutinizing her hair, her moles, her skin.
- Once you are suspicious of changes in a coloured skin mole, don't delay in reporting the condition for an expert opinion.
- I have quite a few moles naturally on my skin and I should have listened to him, but I didn't.
- After a discussion that included a review of some photographs of melanomas, the patient agreed to the arm biopsy and to leave the facial mole alone.
mark, freckle, blotch, discoloration, spot, blemish
Origin
Old English māl 'discoloured spot', of Germanic origin.
mole3
noun məʊlmoʊl
1A large solid structure on a shore serving as a pier, breakwater, or causeway.
- The moles were built to protect Lagos' valuable harbor from the fierce action of the waves and to prevent sand from entering the deeply dredged harbor on the ocean surge.
- The north and south moles connect to the shore and the seabed ascends from 30m to nothing along the length of them.
- To this end, Alexander ordered his engineers to build a mole - a land bridge from the mainland to the island.
- For a while, a plan for a harbour mole sat on the drawing board, but when the Armed Constabulary were transferred out of town, all shipping stopped.
- We abandoned it to them, demolishing the protective mole that we had begun to build before leaving.
- He ordered that a huge mole be built across the harbour at La Rochelle which made any Huguenot attempt to land supplies impossible.
- The gently shelving beaches made evacuation laborious and the major effort was soon switched to the harbour's east mole, from where two-thirds of those rescued were eventually embarked.
- Smith points out the harbour mole where land is already being reclaimed for a huge new site linking to Newhaven, built around a landscaped park and lake.
- By the late 1890s he had completed the south and north moles, and the new harbour was ready to receive the great P & O liners.
breakwater, groyne, dyke, pier, jetty, sea wall, embankment, causeway- 1.1 A harbour formed or protected by a mole.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from French môle, from Latin moles 'mass'.
mole4
(also mol)
noun məʊlmoʊl
Chemistry The SI unit of amount of substance, equal to the quantity containing as many elementary units as there are atoms in 0.012 kg of carbon-12.
- In the decomposition, four moles of nitroglycerin decompose into approximately 30 moles of carbon dioxide, water, nitrogen, and oxygen.
- For most purposes a substance which has a solubility of less than 0.01 moles per liter is generally regarded as insoluble.
- One chaotic chemical system that has been well studied is a mixture of equal numbers of moles of carbon monoxide and oxygen with a small amount of molecular hydrogen.
- One mole of any substance weighs a number of grams that is equal to the atomic or molecular weight of that substance.
- The number of moles present in any amount of the solution can be calculated by multiplying the molarity by the volume.
Origin
Early 20th century: from German Mol, from Molekul, from Latin (see molecule).
mole5
noun məʊlmoʊl
Medicine An abnormal mass of tissue in the uterus.
See also hydatidiform mole- No fetal tissue was identified in association with the partial mole.
- Molar pregnancy poses a threat to the pregnant woman when the mole penetrates deep into the uterine wall, which can result in heavy bleeding.
- After the uterus is emptied, about 20 percent of complete moles and 2 percent of partial moles persist and the remaining abnormal tissue may continue to grow.
Origin
Late Middle English: from French môle, from Latin mola in the sense 'false conception'.
mole6
noun ˈməʊleɪˈmoʊleɪ
mass nounA highly spiced Mexican sauce made chiefly from chilli peppers and chocolate, served with meat.
- This would be a wonderful side dish to some chicken mole, or even an enchilada.
- Oaxaca's traditional food is widely seen as the best in Mexico and local specialties include tamales, fried grasshoppers and a spicy chilli and chocolate sauce known as mole.
- Here the chicken in the pollo con mole is very tender in its chocolatey, smoky, smouldering mole.
- Smear chicken pieces generously with mole and bake in a moderate oven, turning once or twice during baking, for about 30 minutes.
- The only difference here is that the pastes are full of pineapple, or coconut, or even mole, the Aztec sauce comprising one half chilli, one half chocolate.
Origin
Mexican Spanish, from Nahuatl molli 'sauce, stew'.
mole1
nounmoʊlmōl
1A small burrowing insectivorous mammal with dark velvety fur, a long muzzle, and very small eyes.
Family Talpidae: several genera and species, including the eastern mole (Scalopus aquaticus) of North America
- While bats are highly specialized for flight, they share anatomical characters with the Insectivora, the mammalian taxon that includes shrews and moles.
- Even though we're on the edge of a major city, our yard is populated by a variety of mice, moles, squirrels, chipmunks and opossums.
- After I'd mowed the other day, a mole burrowed just under the surface of the lawn, leaving mounds of dirt and raised tunnel-bumps all over the place.
- The fur of moles is velvety and can lie equally well in any direction, which allows easy movement in the burrows backward as well as forwards.
- Although moles feed on beneficial invertebrates as well as lawn pests, they rarely affect the populations of either.
mouldwarp, mouldywarp2A spy who achieves over a long period an important position within the security defenses of a country.
a well-placed mole was feeding them the names of operatives- That search for the supposed mole within CIA severely damaged the careers of some CIA officers.
- For more than one year they had sat on information regarding the alleged mole, compromising security, he said.
- But without effective compartmentation, a single, well-placed mole can trigger an intelligence leak of catastrophic proportions.
- The FBI's polygraph program has similarly failed to yield any moles.
- Things get dangerous when the recruit is given the special assignment of rooting out a suspected mole that has infiltrated the Agency.
- The lawyers were alerted by a journalist who said that Operation Torison was part of a major British intelligence gathering exercise involving a mole high up within the republican movement.
- I don't know how they found out about her… but my gut instinct tells me that there is a mole in the CIA.
- The West stopped the old ways of planting moles and spooks deep into other societies for decades, so they could learn the cultures and linguistic nuances.
- What about a mole being a double agent who establishes a cover long before beginning espionage?
- Intelligence officials believe he was the mole.
- He confessed that he had been a KGB mole for almost a decade and had provided the KGB with secrets that compromised more than 100 CIA operations in Russia.
- He is told that there is a mole within his agency assisting with the plot.
- There may have been a mole planted by the security services inside the terror cells in the country.
- The report listed the Netherlands, Britain, Germany and France as places where the ring is operating and said that ‘it is trying today to plant moles in central Europe.’
- He sends in his best officer, Jin, as a mole to infiltrate the group.
- The others that he talked to are incredulous at the thought of a mole because of their excellent anti-espionage program.
- The police and the Triads plant a young mole in the other's camp, each of which rises to a position of influence over a period of years.
- This incident took place at the same time the FBI was conducting a top secret probe into whether there was a mole operating in the bureau.
- Unbeknownst to John J., he has been set up by a mole in the operation.
- He started an internal witchhunt that targeted exactly the wrong people, leaving KGB moles undisturbed.
spy, agent, secret agent, double agent, undercover agent, operative, plant, infiltrator- 2.1 Someone within an organization who anonymously betrays confidential information.the company is hunting for the mole who revealed details of planned job cuts
- One of Asymmetrical Information's moles forwards this item from Businessweek.
- After all, if the mole was leaking information to hit men, then that was a potential risk to Harmony's safety, wasn't it?
- He is a dastardly turncoat Democratic mole, who betrayed the good people of this country for purely political reasons.
- The film was made after one of the BNP's Bradford organisers, Andy Sykes, decided to become a mole and helped reporter Jason Gwynne secure undercover footage.
- For £50,000 we will finger moles within your organisation.
- We knew that the opposition had a mole in our organization, but no one ever suspected that Albert was involved.
- By filling the government ranks with low-level corporate moles, the plan will make the corruption of government even easier.
- Campaigners against the arms trade have accused their own chief paid organiser of being a mole secretly working on behalf of their opponents.
- I've good reason to believe there's a mole in our organization.
- But he didn't just quit, instead he became a mole at the heart of the movement, passing information to the anti-Fascist media.
- I've been out in the trenches but my moles have kept me informed of all the relevant footy gossip as we approach finals time again.
- In these days of public inquiries into just about anything, perhaps the Council ought to instigate one of its own to see if the Leeds Rhinos managed to insert a mole in the Bradford planning department.
- When we were in California last week, a mole told us that nothing upsets marketers more than revealing the real names of computer chips.
- A councillor who owed £640 in rent arrears has called for the town hall mole who leaked information to the newspaper to be sacked.
- Not being originally of the community, the mole cannot really betray.
- It turned out that a mole within texted out the decision while the committee was still locked in discussion.
- There must be a few liberal moles toiling anonymously inside the conservative news channel who can smuggle these things to the outside world, right?
- The combative Canadian businessman summarily ejected him from the board, blackening his character as a mole and provider of information to the tabloid press.
- All it takes is a leaked print of a film from a studio mole, or an advance copy from an Academy Award screener, or a filched workprint, and you have a pirated version ready to download.
- A secret dossier from my mole in the company revealed a number of new spots, as well as old favourites, that I had missed on previous visits.
Origin
Late Middle English: from the Germanic base of Middle Dutch and Middle Low German mol.
mole2
nounmōlmoʊl
A small, often slightly raised blemish on the skin made dark by a high concentration of melanin.
a mole on her arm had not been there at the beginning of the summer- The border of the mole should be smooth, with a clear distinction between skin and the mole.
- Once you are suspicious of changes in a coloured skin mole, don't delay in reporting the condition for an expert opinion.
- ‘Well, you have a mole right there,’ Caleb informed him, pointing to the little freckle.
- Coral, a pretty woman with olive-tan skin dotted with small moles and full plum lips, was dating a man seven years her senior.
- After a discussion that included a review of some photographs of melanomas, the patient agreed to the arm biopsy and to leave the facial mole alone.
- This is where such characteristics as a facial twitch or a well-placed mole come in handy.
- Her knuckles were full of tiny fissures and wrinkles, the backs covered with freckles, moles and scars.
- She added: ‘We are negotiating with a retailer so we can offer free screening clinics for moles in stores across the country.’
- He was unshaven with a mole on his right temple and was wearing a brown-coloured shirt.
- People in Bradford are being urged to get their moles checked at a skin cancer open day.
- The first signs appear through existing markings on the skin, such as moles or freckles, which may become larger, redder or rougher.
- It's essential that people monitor their moles and skin blemishes and report any changes in them.
- Melanoma first appears as a mole or skin discoloration.
- A nurse whose life was saved after a colleague spotted a cancerous mole on her leg helped to screen others at a skin cancer screening clinic yesterday.
- He had pale, clear skin with nary a blemish, aside from a tiny mole on the corner of his full lower lip.
- The signs of malignant change in a mole are very important to know.
- The only blemish is a small mole just under his left eye, but somehow that little imperfection makes him so much better looking.
- She stares in the mirror, scrutinizing her hair, her moles, her skin.
- Although moles do often change slightly over a lifetime, that change should not occur over months or years.
- Because a shaved mole's ‘roots’ are left in the skin, the mole may grow back.
- I have quite a few moles naturally on my skin and I should have listened to him, but I didn't.
mark, freckle, blotch, discoloration, spot, blemish
Origin
Old English māl ‘discolored spot’, of Germanic origin.
mole3
nounmōlmoʊl
1A large solid structure on a shore serving as a pier, breakwater, or causeway.
- We abandoned it to them, demolishing the protective mole that we had begun to build before leaving.
- Smith points out the harbour mole where land is already being reclaimed for a huge new site linking to Newhaven, built around a landscaped park and lake.
- The moles were built to protect Lagos' valuable harbor from the fierce action of the waves and to prevent sand from entering the deeply dredged harbor on the ocean surge.
- For a while, a plan for a harbour mole sat on the drawing board, but when the Armed Constabulary were transferred out of town, all shipping stopped.
- To this end, Alexander ordered his engineers to build a mole - a land bridge from the mainland to the island.
- He ordered that a huge mole be built across the harbour at La Rochelle which made any Huguenot attempt to land supplies impossible.
- By the late 1890s he had completed the south and north moles, and the new harbour was ready to receive the great P & O liners.
- The gently shelving beaches made evacuation laborious and the major effort was soon switched to the harbour's east mole, from where two-thirds of those rescued were eventually embarked.
- The north and south moles connect to the shore and the seabed ascends from 30m to nothing along the length of them.
breakwater, groyne, dyke, pier, jetty, sea wall, embankment, causeway- 1.1 A harbor formed or protected by a mole.
Origin
Mid 16th century: from French môle, from Latin moles ‘mass’.
mole4
(also mol)
nounmōlmoʊl
Chemistry The SI unit of amount of substance, equal to the quantity containing as many elementary units as there are atoms in 0.012 kg of carbon-12.
- For most purposes a substance which has a solubility of less than 0.01 moles per liter is generally regarded as insoluble.
- In the decomposition, four moles of nitroglycerin decompose into approximately 30 moles of carbon dioxide, water, nitrogen, and oxygen.
- One mole of any substance weighs a number of grams that is equal to the atomic or molecular weight of that substance.
- One chaotic chemical system that has been well studied is a mixture of equal numbers of moles of carbon monoxide and oxygen with a small amount of molecular hydrogen.
- The number of moles present in any amount of the solution can be calculated by multiplying the molarity by the volume.
Origin
Early 20th century: from German Mol, from Molekul, from Latin (see molecule).
mole5
nounmōlmoʊl
Medicine An abnormal mass of tissue in the uterus.
See also hydatidiform mole- No fetal tissue was identified in association with the partial mole.
- Molar pregnancy poses a threat to the pregnant woman when the mole penetrates deep into the uterine wall, which can result in heavy bleeding.
- After the uterus is emptied, about 20 percent of complete moles and 2 percent of partial moles persist and the remaining abnormal tissue may continue to grow.
Origin
Late Middle English: from French môle, from Latin mola in the sense ‘false conception’.
mole6
nounˈmōlāˈmoʊleɪ
A highly spiced Mexican sauce made chiefly from chili peppers and chocolate, served with meat.
- This would be a wonderful side dish to some chicken mole, or even an enchilada.
- Oaxaca's traditional food is widely seen as the best in Mexico and local specialties include tamales, fried grasshoppers and a spicy chilli and chocolate sauce known as mole.
- Here the chicken in the pollo con mole is very tender in its chocolatey, smoky, smouldering mole.
- The only difference here is that the pastes are full of pineapple, or coconut, or even mole, the Aztec sauce comprising one half chilli, one half chocolate.
- Smear chicken pieces generously with mole and bake in a moderate oven, turning once or twice during baking, for about 30 minutes.
Origin
Mexican Spanish, from Nahuatl molli ‘sauce, stew’.