mull

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /mʌl/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ʌl

Related to mill (“to grind”).

mull (third-person singular simple present mulls, present participle mulling, simple past and past participle mulled)

1. (usually with over) To work (over) mentally; to cogitate; to ruminate.

   to mull a thought or a problem

   he paused to mull over his various options before making a decision

   • 1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as chapter 5, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, 1914 June, →OCLC:

     It was the germ of a thought, which, however, was destined to mull around in his conscious and subconscious mind until it resulted in magnificent achievement.

   • 2010, Plato, “Euthyphro”, in Christopher Rowe, transl., The Last Days of Socrates, Penguin Books Ltd., →ISBN, line 9c:

     But here’s a thought I had as you were speaking just now, and I’m mulling it over.

   • 2021 February 2, Katharine Murphy, The Guardian‎^[1]:

     When Morrison mulls the pluses and minuses associated with rebuking Kelly for undermining the government’s public health messaging, the prime minister faces a genuine substantive dilemma, and that goes to the risks of amplification.

2. To powder; to pulverize.
3. To chop marijuana so that it becomes a smokable form.
4. To heat and spice something, such as wine.
5. To join two or more individual windows at mullions.
6. To dull or stupefy.

• mull over
• mulled wine, mulled cider

mull (countable and uncountable, plural mulls)

1. (uncountable) Marijuana that has been chopped to prepare it for smoking.

   Synonyms: see Thesaurus:marijuana

2. A stew of meat, broth, milk, butter, vegetables, and seasonings, thickened with soda crackers.
3. The gauze used in bookbinding to adhere a text block to a book's cover.
4. An inferior kind of madder prepared from the smaller roots or the peelings and refuse of the larger.
5. (slang, archaic) A mess of something; a mistake.
   • 1904, Parliamentary Debates, New Zealand. Parliament. House of Representatives, page 83:

     Mr. HERDMAN. — The honourable member for Nelson says they made a mull of it. If the honourable gentleman had been a financial authority he would never have given expression to such a thought.

   • 2014, Andrea Pickens, A Stroke of Luck

     After studying the page a bit longer, she made a face. "Good Lord, you've really made a mull of it. Here, let me have a closer look."

Shortened from mulmul.

mull (countable and uncountable, plural mulls)

1. A thin, soft muslin.
   • 1891, United States. Department of the Treasury, Synopsis of the Decisions of the Treasury Department on the Construction of the Tariff, Navigation, and Other Laws for the Year Ended ..., page 631:

     The merchandise in this case consists of Madras mulls — thin cotton cloth.

   • 1916, “Smocking”, in The Dressmaker: A Complete Book on All Matters Connected with Sewing and Dressmaking […], 2nd revised and enlarged edition, New York, N.Y., London: The Butterick Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 29:

     Smocking done in colors on fine white batiste, silk mull, or nainsook makes pretty guimpes and dresses for children and very smart blouses for women.

• → German: Mull
• → Norwegian Bokmål: moll

From Scottish Gaelic maol.

mull (plural mulls)

2. (Scotland) A promontory.

   the Mull of Kintyre

3. A snuffbox made of the small end of a horn.

• snuff-mull

From Middle English molle (“rubbish”), from Middle French mol or its etymon Latin mollis.

mull (uncountable)

1. dirt; rubbish

From Danish muld, from Old Norse mold.

mull (uncountable)

1. Finely powdered solid.
2. Friable forest humus that forms a layer of mixed organic matter and mineral soil and merges gradually into the mineral soil beneath.

Sound-symbolic.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmulʲː/, [ˈmulʲː]
• Rhymes: -ulʲː
• Hyphenation: mull

mull (genitive mulli, partitive mulli)

1. bubble (spherically contained volume of air in a liquid)

   Synonyms: vull (rare), pull (dated)

   Kas soovite mulliga või mullita vett? ― Would you like sparkling or still water? (literally, “ […] with bubbles or without bubbles?”)

• mull in Sõnaveeb (Eesti Keele Instituut)
• “mull”, in [EKSS] Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat [Descriptive Dictionary of the Estonian Language] (in Estonian) (online version), Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus (Estonian Language Foundation), 2009

mull

1. alternative form of molle (“rubbish”)
   • c. 1386–1390, John Gower, edited by Reinhold Pauli, Confessio Amantis of John Gower: Edited and Collated with the Best Manuscripts, volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), London: Bell and Daldy […], published 1857, →OCLC:

     That other cofre of straw and mull

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

mull (plural mulls)

1. headland

From Old Norse mold, from Proto-Germanic *muldō (“dirt, soil”). Cognate with Icelandic mold, German Mull, Dutch moude and Gothic 𐌼𐌿𐌻𐌳𐌰 (mulda).

• IPA^(key): /mɵl/

mull c

1. mold (loose soil), earth
2. dust

• matjord
• mullbär
• mylla

• mull in Svensk ordbok (SO)
• mull in Svenska Akademiens ordlista (SAOL)
• mull in Svenska Akademiens ordbok (SAOB)