Other forms: mules
A mule is the offspring of a donkey and a horse. Stubborn as a mule, a pack mule, mules on the track.
It is almost always sterile, because the parents have different numbers of chromosomes. It has the donkey's sure feet and the horse's size, which is why armies used them in mountains for centuries. Stubborn as a mule is unfair: mules refuse what they judge unsafe, which is caution rather than obstinacy.
1nounmuleThe offspring of a donkey and a horse.
“The farmers used mules to carry supplies up the steep mountain paths.”
mule is an animal.
Latin mulus names the animal, and both Old English and French forms fed into the English word.
Middle English
mule
English, today
mule
From Middle English mule. Middle English mule, from Anglo-Norman mule (“she-mule”) and Old English mūl, both ultimately from Latin mūlus, from Proto-Indo-European mukslós. Compare Latin muscellus (“young he-mule”), orv мъшкъ (“mule”), Ancient Greek (Phocian) μυχλός (“he-ass”), and German Maul Maultier, Maulesel (through Latin).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA