mooch

present singular third person mooches · participle present mooching · participle past mooched · past mooched · alternative mouch

1. UKcolloquialTo wander around aimlessly, often causing irritation to others.

   Near-synonyms: loiter, roam

   4 more examples

   These chaps that mooch about, as Hyde was doing, pick up all sorts of odds and ends. He may have pinched them from a chemist’s shop.

   1922, J. S. Fletcher, The Middle of Things, New York: A. Knopf, page 161

   You have to be alone to mooch about properly. Other people will just get in the way and be all energetic about things. So wait until they've gone, make a cup of tea and then let the mooching commence.

   2007 August 10, Guy Browning, “How to … mooch about”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   With 79 minutes gone, the most celebrated team of the modern age had been reduced to bunch of mooching, stumbling yellow-shirted spectators.

   2019 May 8, Barney Ronay, “Liverpool’s waves of red fury and recklessness end in joyous bedlam”, in The Guardian

   A handful of camera crews mooched around the entrance to the Giorgio Cini foundation, where a pair of tight-lipped but polite individuals sat before monitors under a gazebo and politely fended off requests for information.

   2025 June 27, Sam Jones, “Till Jeff us do part: divisive, star-studded Bezos wedding hits full swing in Venice”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

2. colloquialTo beg, cadge, or sponge; to exploit or take advantage of others for personal gain.

   I managed to mooch my way up the journalistic ladder to the next, more impressive level of “Interviewer”.

   1990, Michael L. Frankel & friends, Gently with the Tides, Washington (DC): Center for Marine Conservation, →ISBN, page 26

   1 more example

   Mr. Prince responded on Twitter: “Phony fraud photographers keep mooching me. Why? I changed the game,” he wrote on Wednesday. His Instagram account, which previously had over 70,000 followers, is currently disabled.

   2017 July 20, Andrew R. Chow, quoting Richard Prince, “Copyright Case Over Richard Prince Instagram Show to Go Forward”, in The New York Times, →ISSN

   Synonyms: leech, beg, blag, bum, cadge, leech, mump, scrounge

3. UKcolloquialtransitiveTo steal or filch.

   I'm tired of driving you all over and sick of you living in my house, mooching my food.

   2019, Susan Alice Bickford, Dread of Winter

   Synonyms: steal, abduct, abstract, appropriate, bag, bandit, bash and grab, bone

plural mooches · alternative mouch

1. UKcolloquialAn aimless stroll.

   Jack wouldn't be arriving for another ten minutes, so I had a mooch around the garden.

   1 more example

   At the secondary school where I normally work as a librarian, I take key workers’ and other children on a “nature mooch”. We undull our senses.

   2020 April 20, Nicola Chester, “Country diary: a nature mooch undulls the children’s senses”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

2. colloquialOne who mooches; a moocher.

   "No! I'm sick of you being a mooch, bumming off me all the time! I'm going to London for a few days."

   2000 July 8, “Dulcie Domum: London calling”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   Synonyms: bloodsucker, bludger, bummer, freeloader, free rider, gadfly, leech, moocher

1. colloquialpronunciation spellingPronunciation spelling of much

plural mooches

1. UScolloquialhumorousslanggovernmentSynonym of Scaramucci (“unit of time”).

   I understand it's her job. But I would point out to people that Stephanie has lasted way more “Mooches” than me.

   2019 August 29, Peter Nicholas, “Anthony Scaramucci Wants You to Believe Him This Time”, in The Atlantic

   2 more examples

   If we take Scaramucci’s 10-day figure to be the standard of measurement — one “mooch” — then Pruitt survived an amazing 50.3 mooches, even while enduring more than a dozen scandals, any one of which would have doomed a lesser man.

   2018 July 6, Dana Milbank, The Washington Post

   Scaramucci, who jokingly measures time in mooches, a unit equal to approximately 11 days, said he doesn’t necessarily like the version of himself he often sees on screen, but feels director Andrew J. Moscato was accurate.

   2018 October 27, John Carucci, “Anthony Scaramucci defends Trump, but doesn't always agree”, in Associated Press (press release)-

   Synonyms: Scaramucci