mongoose
American Heritage Dictionary:
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mon·goose
(mŏng'gūs', mŏn'-) 
n., pl., -goos·es.
Any of various Old World carnivorous mammals of the genus Herpestes and related genera, having a slender agile body and a long tail and noted for the ability to seize and kill venomous snakes.
n., pl., -goos·es.
Any of various Old World carnivorous mammals of the genus Herpestes and related genera, having a slender agile body and a long tail and noted for the ability to seize and kill venomous snakes.
[Marathi mangūs, of Dravidian origin.]
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mongoose
Fowler's Modern English Usage:
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mongoose
the small animal like a civet, has the plural form mongooses.
| mongol, mongolism, mongoloid, moneys, moneyed | |
| monkey, monologue, soliloquy, mood |
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
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mongoose
Any of the 37 species of carnivores constituting the family Herpestidae, found in Africa, Asia, and southern Europe. Rudyard Kipling's famous Rikki-tikki-tavi was an Indian, or gray, mongoose (Herpestes edwardsii); the meerkat is also a member of the mongoose family. Species range from 7 to 35 in. (17 to 90 cm) long, excluding the furry 612-in. (1530-cm) tail. Mongooses have short legs, a pointed nose, and small ears. Most species are active during the day. The gray to brown fur may have light flecks or dark markings. Mongooses live in burrows, alone, in pairs, or in large groups, and they eat small mammals, birds, reptiles, eggs, and fruit. A few species are semiaquatic. Though not immune to venom, some species attack and kill poisonous snakes by cracking the skull with a powerful bite.
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The name for about 39 species of carnivorous mammals which are members of the family Viverridae. This family also includes the civets and genets. Mongooses are restricted in their distribution to the warmer regions of the Old World, ranging from the Mediterranean into Africa and Southeast Asia. These are plantigrade animals about the size of a cat and have a long slender body, short legs, nonretractile claws, and scent glands. Some species are fair climbers even though the claws are nonretractile. Mongooses are predators, feeding on snakes, frogs, fishes, and crabs, and they are especially fond of bird and crocodile eggs. The mongoose cannot legally be brought into the United States because of its destructive habits. See also Carnivora; Civet.
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from Marathi
This word originated in India
It's not a goose but a small meat-eating mammal, something like a weasel or ferret, about a foot long with a tail of equal length. Since it's not a goose, its plural is not mongeese but mongooses. It's native to southern Asia and Africa.
You won't have any mice if you have a pet mongoose. But then you might not have any kittens or puppies either. Mongooses are so effective in getting rid of small mammals that they are household pets in India. They are banned from import into the United States because they would destroy too many of our native creatures.
From a mongoose you can learn how to catch a snake. First, get its attention and dare it to strike. Second, jump out of the way. Third, repeat steps one and two till the snake is worn out. Then grab the snake's head in your mouth, crush it, and enjoy your meal at leisure. During steps one, two, and three you do have to watch out, because if a poisonous snake bites you while you're taunting it, you're dead. But if you're a mongoose, once the snake is dead you can eat it, venom and all, without the slightest indigestion.
In number of speakers, Marathi is one of the world's major languages, spoken by about sixty-five million people in western India. It belongs to the Indo-Iranian branch of our Indo-European language family. Mongoose, a word Marathi obtained from a non-Indo-European Dravidian source, showed up in English, in a book about India, as early as 1698. From Marathi we also have carambola (1598), an evergreen tree and its star-shaped fruit, and bummalo (1673), also known as Bombay duck (1860), not a duck but a kind of fish.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
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mongoose
mongoose, name for a large number of small, carnivorous, terrestrial Old World mammals of the civet family. They are found in S Asia and in Africa, with one species extending into S Spain. Mongooses are fierce, active hunters, feeding on a variety of ground-living animals, as well as eggs, and, in some species, fruits. They live in a variety of habitats and occupy rock crevices or holes, or dig burrows. Unlike civets, they lack scent glands. Typical mongooses, species of the genus Herpestes, are weasellike in appearance, with long, slender bodies, pointed faces, and bushy tails. Their hair is coarse and shaggy. They range in length from 11/2 to 31/2 ft (45-106 cm) including the tail, which is about as long as the head and body. The Indian gray mongoose, H. edwardsi, is known for its ability to kill snakes, including cobras. A medium-sized mongoose, it lives in arid rocky or brushy areas, or cultivated pastures. When attacking a snake, the mongoose provokes it to strike repeatedly, avoiding it by agile dodging; when the snake is exhausted the mongoose seizes its head in its jaws and crushes the skull. Skill in evading the snake is learned, and young mongooses often die of snakebite. However, ingested snake venom is harmless to the mongoose, which eats the snake's head and venom glands. The Indian mongoose is easily tamed and is often kept as a pet and a destroyer of household vermin. Imported into the West Indies to kill rats, it destroyed most of the small, ground-living native fauna. Because of their destructiveness, it is illegal to import mongooses into the United States, even for zoos. The Egyptian gray mongoose, or ichneumon, H. ichneumon, is a large species common in most of Africa and in S Spain. It lives in damp, forested regions and preys on small terrestrial and freshwater animals. The ancient Egyptians domesticated this mongoose, which they considered sacred. The marsh mongoose, Atilax paludinosus, lives near bodies of water in Africa and dives for food. The meerkat (Suricata suricatta), or suricate, is a social mongoose of S African grasslands; meerkats live in large communal burrows and prey chiefly on insects and other small invertebrates. Mongooses are classified in approximately 12 genera of the phylum Chordata, subphylum Vertebrata, class Mammalia, order Carnivora, family Viverridae.
Bibliography
See H. E. Hinton and A. Dunn, Mongooses (1967); A. Rasa, Mongoose Watch (1985).
Saunders Veterinary Dictionary:
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mongoose
Small, cat-sized mammal in the family Viverridae. There are a number of varieties and genera including the Egyptian mongoose (Herpestes ichneumon) and the banded mongoose (Mungos mungo). A voracious eater of rodents and reptiles and a favorite house pet.
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American Heritage Dictionary
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.
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