mu

From Ancient Greek μῦ (mû), derived from Phoenician 𐤌𐤌 (mm /⁠mem⁠/, “water”). Doublet of mem.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /muː/, /mjuː/
  • Rhymes: -uː
  • Homophone: moo (first pronunciation only)
  • Homophone: mew (second pronunciation only)
• (General American) IPA^(key): /mju/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

  • Rhymes: -uː
  • Homophone: mew

mu (countable and uncountable, plural mus)

1. The 12th letter of the Modern Greek alphabet.

• mu-meson, muon
• mu-metal

From Japanese 無 (mu, “nothing, neither yes nor no”).

• (UK) IPA^(key): /muː/
  • Homophone: moo
• (US) IPA^(key): /mjuː/, /muː/

  • Audio (US)

    (file)

  • Homophone: mew (first pronunciation only)
  • Homophone: moo (second pronunciation only)

mu

1. (Zen Buddhism) Neither yes nor no.
   • 1974, Robert M[aynard] Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, New York, N.Y.: William Morrow & Company, →ISBN:

     Mu means "no thing." Like "Quality" it points outside the process of dualistic discrimination. Mu simply says, "No class; not one, not zero, not yes, not no." […] It's a great mistake, a kind of dishonesty, to sweep nature's mu answers under the carpet.

   • 1979, Douglas Hofstadter, Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid:

     Achilles: Oh, but MU is Jōshū’s answer. By saying MU, Jōshū let the other monk know that only by not asking such questions can one know the answer to them.
     Tortoise: Jōshū “unasked” the question. […]
     Achilles: […] And the answer of “MU” here rejects the premises of the question, which are that one or the other must be chosen.

   • 1996, Dan Simmons, “Looking for Kelly Dahl”, in The Year's Best Science Fiction, page 424:

     "Mu," said Kelly Dahl.
     On one level mu means only yes, but on a deeper level of Zen it was often used by the master when the acolyte asked a stupid, unanswerable or wrongheaded question such as "Does a dog have the Buddha-nature?" The Master would answer only, "Mu," meaning—I say "yes" but mean "no," but the actual answer is: Unask the question.

   • 2002, Norman Waddell, Masao Abe, The Heart of Dōgen's Shōbōgenzō, page 72:

     The Fifth Patriarch's utterance You say mu [Buddha-nature] because Buddha-nature is emptiness articulates clearly and distinctly the truth that emptiness is not "no". In uttering Buddha-nature-emptiness one does not say "half a pound." One does not say "eight ounces." One says "mu."

   • 2010, Joan Price, Sacred Scriptures of the World Religions, page 70:

     A monk once asked Master Joshu, 'Has a dog the Buddha Nature or not?' Joshu said, 'Mu!'

mu (uncountable)

1. (Zen Buddhism) Nothingness; nonexistence; the illusory nature of reality.
   • 2012, Omori, Introduction To Zen Training, →ISBN, page 115:

     That being the case, we should naturally choose to contemplate mu from morning to night, forgetting everything.

   • 2012, Dr Robert Wilkinson, Nishida and Western Philosophy, →ISBN:

     Consequently, though mu is mindlike, the likeness to individual consciousness cannot be pushed very far.

   • 2013, Sean Murphy, Natalie Goldberg, One Bird, One Stone: 108 Contemporary Zen Stories, →ISBN, page xvii:

     The monk posed to Chaoi-chou a question: Does a dog have a buddha nature or not?" Chao-chou, without a moment's hesitation, answered, “Mu." (Translated as "No.")

   • 2013, Maura O'Halloran, Pure Heart, Enlightened Mind, →ISBN:

     If mu is mind, consciousness, it is nothing.

Used to answer a question that if answered with "yes" or "no" would imply something false.

• (nothingness): See also Thesaurus:inexistence

• (non-affirmative, non-negative answer): n/a

From Mandarin 畝／亩 (mǔ).

mu (plural mu)

1. A unit of surface area, currently equivalent to two-thirtieths of a hectare.
   • [1959 September, Tung Ta-lin [董大林], “The Inevitability of Quick Transition from Lower to Higher Stage of Agricultural Co-operation”, in Agricultural Co-operation in China [中国农业合作化的道路] (China Knowledge Series)‎, 2nd edition, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, →OCLC, page 72:

     The Lucky Star Co-operative in Chuwo County on the plains of southern Shansi had, before the anti-Japanese war, 26 wells, 4 water-wheels and 166.1 mou of irrigated fields, 4.82 per cent of its total arable land.]

   • [1965 July 9 [1965 June 7], “Chienchiang County Reports Increase in Crops”, in Daily Report: Foreign Radio Broadcasts‎, number 131, Foreign Broadcast Information Service, sourced from Wuhan Domestic Service, →OCLC, page DDD 2‎:

     Good news on the summer harvest prevailed in the countryside of Chienchiang County, Hupeh. The county reported remarkable increased in its 600,000 mou of summer food crops this year, surpassing the yield in 1962 which was considered as the best year.]

   • 2004, Peter Ho, “The Wasteland Auction Policy in Northwest China: Solving Environmental Degradation and Rural Poverty?”, in Rural Development in Transitional China: The New Agriculture‎, →ISBN, →ISSN, →LCCN, →OCLC, →OL, page 125‎:

     Pengyang county was administered by Guyuan before 1988. In contrast to Guyuan, Pengyang is relatively wealthy. Farmers earn a considerable income through tobacco cultivation, which can yield an annual gross income of Rmb 1,500-2,000 per mu. In 1996, the cultivated area of tobacco in Pengyang was 11,000 mu.⁷

   • 2007, Chang Liu, Peasants and Revolution in Rural China: Rural Political Change in the North China Plain and the Yangzi Delta, 1850-1949, page 87:

     Of 114 village farming families, only ten had more than 30 mu of land and only five had more than 60 mu.

• 'um, -um, UM, um, um-

mu

1. Dialectal form of mua

mu

1. (Mpakwithi) buttocks

• Terry Crowley, The Mpakwithi dialect of Anguthimri (1981), page 187

mu

1. moo (sound made by a cow or bull)

• IPA^(key): [ˈmu]

• Audio

  (file)

mu

1. singular dative masculine of on

   Řekni mu, že jím. ― Tell him, I am eating.

• jemu

From Ancient Greek μῦ (mû). Doublet of mem and majem.

• IPA^(key): /my/

• Audio

  (file)

mu m (plural mu's, diminutive muutje n)

1. mu (letter of the Greek alphabet)

• mu on the Dutch Wikipedia.Wikipedia ^nl

mu

1. genitive singular of ma

• Used unstressed in a sentence. When the pronoun is stressed, minu (genitive of mina) is used.

mu

1. very

• muchu

• IPA^(key): /my/

• Audio

  (file)

mu m (plural mu)

1. mu (Greek letter)

mu (feminine mue, masculine plural mus, feminine plural mues)

1. post-1990 spelling of mû

• “mu”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

mu

1. (a) crocodile

• Hanga Hundi Organised Phonology Data (2011)

Cognates include Mangas mun, Polci mii, Miship mun.

• IPA^(key): /múː/
  • (Standard Kano Hausa) IPA^(key): [múː]

mū

1. we (1st person plural pronoun)

mu (Mena), mụ (Ikobi)

1. water

• Karl J. Franklin, Comparative Wordlist 1 of the Gulf District and adjacent areas (1975), page 67

• IPA^(key): /mu/

mu

1. (text messaging, informal) Alternative spelling of -mu.

• IPA^(key): /ˈmu/
• Rhymes: -u
• Hyphenation: mù

mu m or f (invariable)

1. the name of the letter M

mu

1. Rōmaji transcription of む
2. Rōmaji transcription of ム

Borrowed from Burmese မူး (mu:).

mu

1. two anna bit

• Kurabe, Keita (2016 December 31) “Phonology of Burmese loanwords in Jinghpaw”, in Kyoto University Linguistic Research‎, volume 35, →DOI, →ISSN, pages 91–128

mu

1. water

• Gisaburō Norikura Kiyose, A Study of the Jurchen Language and Script: Reconstruction and Decipherment (1977)

mu

1. I

mu

1. water

mu

1. old

• Randy Jones, Provisional Kom - English lexicon (2001, Yaoundé, Cameroon)

• IPA^(key): /mu/

mu

1. to happen

• Hkaw Luk (2017) A grammatical sketch of Lacid‎, Chiang Mai: Payap University (master thesis)

Shortened form of kamu, from Proto-Malayic *kamu(ʔ), from Proto-Malayo-Polynesian *(i-)kamu, *kamiu, from Proto-Austronesian *(i-)kamu, *kamiu.

• IPA^(key): /mu/
• Rhymes: -mu, -u

mu

1. you

mu

1. Nonstandard spelling of mū.
2. Nonstandard spelling of mú.
3. Nonstandard spelling of mǔ.
4. Nonstandard spelling of mù.

• Transcriptions of Mandarin into the Latin script often do not distinguish between the critical tonal differences employed in the Mandarin language, using words such as this one without indication of tone.

• (Kautokeino) IPA^(key): /ˈmuː/

mū

1. accusative/genitive of mun

• IPA^(key): [mu]

mu (triggers lenition)

1. Alternative form of mo (“my”)

• IPA^(key): /mu/

• Audio

  (file)

• Rhymes: -u
• Syllabification: mu

• jemu, niemu

mu m

1. dative singular mute of on

mu n

1. dative singular mute of ono

• Appendix:Polish pronouns

Onomatopoeic.

mu

1. moo (sound made by cows and bulls)

• mu in Polish dictionaries at PWN

• Rhymes: -u
• Hyphenation: mu

Inherited from Old Galician-Portuguese muu, from Latin mūlum (“mule”). Doublet of mulo.

mu m (plural mus)

1. mule

   Synonym: mulo

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek μῦ (mû).

mu m (plural mus)

1. mu (Greek letter)
2. Synonym of muão, múon (“muon”)

Onomatopoeic.

• muu, muuu, etc.

mu

1. moo (the call of a cow)

Onomatopoeic.

mu

1. moo (sound made by cows)

From Old Irish imb. Cognates include Irish um and Manx mysh.

• IPA^(key): /mə/, [ma]

mu (+ dative, triggers lenition, combined with the singular definite article mun)

1. about, around

   Bha craobhan mu ghàrradh an taighe. ― There were trees around the house's yard.

2. about, concerning

   Bha sinn a' bruidhinn mu làithean san sgoil againn. ― We were talking about our days at school.

3. about, approximately

   Bidh a' chuairt a' toirt mu thrì uairean. ― The trip will take about three hours.

mu (Cyrillic spelling му)

1. to him (clitic dative singular of ȏn (“he”))
2. to it (clitic dative singular of òno (“it”))
3. (emphatic, possessive, dative) his, of his (clitic dative singular of ȏn (“he”))

   Gdje mu je auto?

   Where is his car?

4. (emphatic, possessive, dative) its, of its (clitic dative singular of òno (“it”))

• IPA^(key): /ˈmu/ [ˈmu]
• Rhymes: -u
• Syllabification: mu

Onomatopoeic.

mu

1. moo (sound of a cow)

mu f (plural múes)

1. Misspelling of mi. (mu, the Greek letter Μ, μ)

mu

1. (slang) Clipping of muy.

• “mu”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014

mu

1. Romanization of 𒈬 (mu)

• Rhymes: -ʉː

mu

1. moo

mu n

1. moo; the sound of a cow or a bull

• råma

• -um

From Proto-Tai *ʰmuːᴬ (“pig”). Cognate with Thai หมู (mǔu), Northern Thai ᩉ᩠ᨾᩪ, Lao ໝູ (mū), Lü ᦖᦴ (ṁuu), Tai Dam ꪢꪴ, Shan မူ (mǔu), Ahom 𑜉𑜥 (mū), Zhuang mou, Bouyei mul.

• (Thạch An – Tràng Định) IPA^(key): [mu˧˧]
• (Trùng Khánh) IPA^(key): [mu˦˥]

mu (𤝕, 牳)

1. pig

• Hoàng Văn Ma, Lục Văn Pảo, Hoàng Chí (2006) Từ điển Tày-Nùng-Việt [Tay-Nung-Vietnamese dictionary] (in Vietnamese), Hanoi: Nhà xuất bản Từ điển Bách khoa Hà Nội

From Proto-Bantu *-mòì. Cognate with Kikuyu -mwe and Zulu -nye.

• IPA^(key): /mu/

-mu

1. one

   omuntu omu ― one person

2. (in the plural) some

   abantu abamu ― some people

3. (in the plural) same

   abantu abamu ― the same people

• obumu (“unity”)
• hamu (“together”)

1. Kaji, Shigeki (2007) A Rutooro Vocabulary‎, Tokyo: Research Institute for Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa (ILCAA), →ISBN, page 145
2. Rubongoya, L. T. (2013) Katondogorozi y'Orunyoro-Rutooro n'Orungereza [Runyoro–Rutooro-English and English-Runyoro–Rutooro dictionary]‎, Kampala: Modrug Publishers, →ISBN, pages 238, 542, 571, 583

mu

1. Used to form interrogatives.

   Ona bu soruyu sordun mu?

   Did you ask him/her this question?

   Mutlu musun?

   Are you happy?

   Pikniğe gitmiyor muyuz?

   Aren't we going for a picnic?

• Personal suffixes are added to the interrogative particles, as well as the past tense suffixes.
• This form is used when the last vowel of the previous word is "o" or "u". Other forms used with different vowels are: mı?, mi? and mü?

• IPA^(key): /mu/

mu

1. delicious

mu

1. (negation) not

   Mu jna'. ― I do not know him/her/it.

• muk'

(particles)

• mu'yuk

• “mu(1)”, “mu(2)” in Laughlin, Robert M. (1975) The Great Tzotzil Dictionary of San Lorenzo Zinacantán. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
• Laughlin, Robert M. [et al.] (1988) The Great Tzotzil Dictionary of Santo Domingo Zinacantán, vol. I. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.

It is not clear which between "pubic region" and "shell" is the more original, although the sense "back" is certainly a derivative.

Compare Zhuang moz.

• (Hà Nội) IPA^(key): [mu˧˧]
• (Huế) IPA^(key): [mʊw˧˧]
• (Hồ Chí Minh City) IPA^(key): [mʊw˧˧]

mu • (模)

1. pubes, the pubic region
2. (of hands and feet) back

   mu bàn tay ― back of the hand

3. the shells of some animals

   Synonym: mai

Borrowed from Spanish muy (“very”).

mu

1. extremely

Compare Ternate omu (“ripe”).

• IPA^(key): /mu/

mu

1. (stative) to be ripe

• mo

• Clemens Voorhoeve (1982) The Makian languages and their neighbours‎, Pacific linguistics

• mọ (Ọ̀wọ̀, Ìkálẹ̀)

• IPA^(key): /mũ̄/

mu

1. to drink

   Má mu ọtí tó o bá fẹ́ wakọ̀. ― Don't drink alcohol if you want to drive.

2. to suck

   Ọmọ-ọwọ́ ṣì ń mu ọmú. ― The baby is still sucking breast.

3. to lick (juicy fruits such as oranges, or deserts such as ice cream)

   Ọmọdé ń mu ọsàn. ― The child is licking orange.

4. to smoke

   Kò kí ń mu sìgá. ― She doesn't smoke cigarettes.

• IPA^(key): /mṹ/

mú

1. to take
2. to catch

   Àwọn ọlọ́pàá ti mú wa o. ― The police have caught us!

   Mo mú bọ́ọ̀lù. ― I caught the ball.

3. to have an effect on (relating to temperature)

   Òtútù ń mú mi. ― I feel cold. (Cold is having an effect on me)

4. (auxiliary verb) to cause something to do something else (must be used with another verb)

   Oògùn yẹn mú mi sùn. ― That drug made me sleep.

   Ó mú mi mumi. ― It made me drink water.

5. to be sharp

   Ọbẹ̀ náà mú. ― That knife is sharp.

• mú wá (“to bring”)
• mú ẹ̀tanú kúrò (“to break down stereotypes”)
• mú dání (“to hold”)

• IPA^(key): /mũ̀/

mù

1. to be hidden

   Ó mù sábẹ́ igbó. ― It's hidden under the bush.

Cognates with Yoruba mọ̀

• IPA^(key): /mũ̀/

mù

1. (Ijebu) to know

mu

1. see

• http://www.languageinindia.com/feb2013/zouphonologyfinal.pdf