Other forms: moles
A mole is a small dark mark, slightly raised, that sits on the skin and stays for life. One on a cheek, one on a shoulder, the one on your arm you have known since you were six.
Doctors ask you to watch a mole for changes in size, shape or colour, which is why the word runs through every piece of skin-cancer advice. Two other moles look the same and are separate words. One is the small blind animal that digs tunnels and pushes up molehills on a lawn; the spy sense belongs with that animal, because a mole is someone who works inside an organisation for years while quietly reporting to its enemy. In chemistry a mole is the unit for counting particles. And making a mountain out of a molehill is treating a tiny problem as a disaster.
1nounmoleA small dark raised mark on the skin.
“The doctor checked a mole on his back that had changed colour.”
synonyms: beauty spot, blemish
2nounburrowingA small burrowing animal with velvety black fur and strong front paws.
“Moles had dug up half the lawn overnight.”
3nounspyA spy who works inside an organisation while secretly serving another.
“They spent two years hunting for the mole inside the department.”
4nounchemistryIn chemistry, the unit for the amount of a substance.
“One mole of any substance contains the same number of particles.”
mole is a mark on the skin.
The skin mole is an old English blemish. Old English māl meant a spot, mark or stain, from Proto-Germanic *mailą, 'spot, wrinkle', and behind that a root meaning dark or dirty, from an older one meaning to soil. The animal that digs and the spy who burrows come from a different word that merely sounds the same.
Proto-Indo-European
*mel-
Proto-Germanic
*mailą — spot, wrinkle
Proto-West Germanic
Old English
māl — a mole, spot, mark, blemish
Middle English
mole
English, today
mole
Built from
+ (skin marking) From Middle English mole, mool, from Old English māl (“a mole, spot, mark, blemish”), from Proto-West Germanic mail, from Proto-Germanic mailą (“spot, wrinkle”), from Proto-Indo-European mel-, melw- (“dark, dirty”), from Proto-Indo-European mey-, my- (“to soil, sully”). Cognate with Scots mail (“spot, stain”), stq Moal (“scar”), German - dialectal Meil (“spot, stain, blemish”), Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌹𐌻 (“spot, blemish”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA