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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. An animal or a plant resulting from various interbreedings, especially a dog of mixed or undetermined breed.
  2. n. A cross between different breeds, groups, or varieties, especially a mixture that is or appears to be incongruous.
  3. adj. Of mixed origin or character.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. To make mongrel; mongrelize.
  2. n. An individual or a breed of animals resulting from repeated crossing or mixture of several different varieties; the progeny of varieties, and especially of artificial varieties, as distinguished from the hybrid, or cross between two different species (but the distinction is not always observed).
  3. n. Specifically, a dog of mixed breed.
  4. n. Anything of mixed breed; anything that is a mixture of incongruous elements.
  5. Of a mixed or impure breed; begotten or made up of different kinds: usually in a disreputable sense.

Wiktionary

  1. n. Someone of mixed kind or uncertain origin, especially a dog.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. The progeny resulting from a cross between two breeds, as of domestic animals; anything of mixed breed.
  2. adj. Not of a pure breed.
  3. adj. Of mixed kinds.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. an inferior dog or one of mixed breed
  2. n. derogatory term for a variation that is not genuine; something irregular or inferior or of dubious origin

Etymologies

  1. Middle English, probably from mong, mixture, from Old English gemang; see mag- in Indo-European roots.

Examples

  • “Although mong, from the Old English gemong, meaning “mixture,” is still with us in the form of among, the word mongrel has gained an ugly, snarling connotation; for years mongrelization was a term used by racists.”

    Simon & Schuster: No Uncertain Terms

  • “Anyone who wants to test this theory is most welcome to come over my place, jump the back fence and seize the little MF in the garden 2 doors up that belongs to some feral fracking hippy whose kid calls the mongrel bird ‘Harriet’.”

    Cheeseburger Gothic » The comments that don’t make it in.

  • “Same kind of mongrel bipeds who agreed with Falwell or whichever batshit televangelist blamed Katrina on Southern Decadence.”

    Your Right Hand Thief

  • “He wants to overthrow his father in order to save the country from a "mongrel" government--that is to say, parliamentary rule, which he associates with raw democracy--and sneers at Sophie's love for Eisenheim because of the class differences involved.”

    The Illusionist

  • “In military geek circles, there is a wierd fascination with supposedly superior forces that lost out to "mongrel" forces.”

    Archive 2005-12-01

  • “The president's constituency will be the entire country and not some small constituency in a part of the country," he said, adding that the country was better off with either a pure presidential or parliamentary system as opposed to the current power sharing arrangement, which he described as a "mongrel".”

    AllAfrica News: Latest

  • “It is believed that a further mutation would be needed in order for the H1N1 virus to cause the The flu virus that has brought the world to the brink of a pandemic is not simply swine flu but a real 'mongrel' strain, researchers believe.”

    WN.com - Articles related to Life without tennis was bizarre but injuries have change my outlook, says Maria Sharapova

  • “A small clay model depicted Martus barefoot, with long hair flowing in the wind, and a dog at her side one neighbor described as a "mongrel" rather than a "pure bred collie.”

    OnlineAthens: Top Headlines

  • ““In addition to the Klingon,” he summarized, “there is a Saurian ship, an Orion ship, two more that could best be described as mongrel, and one that defies any description.”

    Simon & Schuster: Sanctuary

  • “Which, wow, brings up all sorts of fun implications for me as a mixed-race person, ha ha -- I haven't heard anyone use "mongrel" to mean "you jerk" in years! (”

    kateelliott: Mongol The Movie

Show 10 more examples...

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  • agustinolvera Eclispe by Stephenie Meyer Page 80
    -"Does that answer your question mongrel?" Nov 1, 2010
  • amacleod03 1. Derogatory description of the offspring or result of miscegenation, mixed marriage, etc.; specifically a person of mixed racial heritage. 2. Derogatory term for a person of mixed descent, whose parents are of different nationalities or different social classes. 3. Derogatory term for a person of Jewish descent. 4. A person of mixed or undefined opinions; a person whose political or religious allegiance, etc., changes according to which way the wind is blowing. 5. A person of base, low, or indeterminate status. 6. A cheat or a coward. 7. Worthless. (adjective)

    Unreported in the U.S. media, the slur made headlines in Britain during the runup to elections in 2005. The Labour Party leader, Peter Hain, called Conservative leader Michael Howard an “attack mongrel.�? Howard is Jewish. Labour Party MP's seemed determined to paint this as simply a variation on “attack dog politics.�? However, it is hard to believe the denials that this was an intentional slur when campaign posters had already depicted Howard as “a Shylock.�? Jul 11, 2009
  • vanishedone When did Mongrel vanish? What did this Phusion Passenger do to it?

    Server: Apache/2.2.4 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.2.4 OpenSSL/0.9.8a Phusion_Passenger/1.9.1
    X-Powered-By: Phusion Passenger (mod_rails/mod_rack) 1.9.1

    I hope Mongrel was sent to a good home, and not cast out to wander the streets. Sep 25, 2008
  • vanishedone Sorry, it vapourised when I last exited my browser. I've got a new one now. Nov 21, 2007
  • uselessness Oh can't I please see your session ID? ;-) Nov 21, 2007
  • vanishedone Oh, I forgot to add: this is a fun page on some of the odd things that have been spotted in response headers.

    http://www.nextthing.org/archives/2005/08/07/fun-with-http-headers Nov 21, 2007
  • vanishedone I have Firefox with the Server Spy and Web Developer Toolbar extensions, both of which can check the HTTP response headers. So if I ask WDT for this page's headers I see:

    Date: Tue, 20 Nov 2007 21:22:39 GMT
    Server: Mongrel 1.0.1
    Status: 200 OK
    Cache-Control: no-cache
    Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8
    Set-Cookie: _session_id=tucked in my tinfoil hat; path=/; expires=Thu, 20 Nov 2008 03:22:38 GMT
    Vary: Accept-Encoding
    Content-Encoding: gzip
    Content-Length: 4202
    X-Cache: MISS from squirrel.dur.ac.uk
    X-Cache-Lookup: MISS from squirrel.dur.ac.uk:8080
    Via: 1.0 squirrel.dur.ac.uk:8080 (squid/2.6.STABLE14-20070730)
    Proxy-Connection: keep-alive

    200 OK Nov 21, 2007
  • uselessness Ooohhh, secrety. Nov 20, 2007
  • john True, it is, in conjunction with Apache. How'd you figure this out? From an error message, maybe? Nov 18, 2007
  • vanishedone Apparently Wordie's server is Mongrel 1.0.1. Nov 17, 2007

‘mongrel’ has been looked up 1346 times, loved by 1 person, added to 27 lists, commented on 10 times, and has a Scrabble score of 10.