mo|le

mole¹ «mohl», noun.

1. a spot on the skin, usually brown: »

Upon one cheek he had a mole not unbecoming (Robert Louis Stevenson).

2. = nevus. (Cf. ↑nevus)

╂[Old English māl]

mole² «mohl», noun.

1. a small animal that lives underground most of the time eating the insects, worms, and larvae that it finds there. Moles have dark, velvety fur, very small eyes that cannot see well, and forelimbs adapted for digging. The moles comprise a family of mammals.

2. Figurative. a person who works in obscurity, especially one who works patiently and painstakingly.

3. a machine for boring through the earth, especially to make tunnels: »

A giant mole [was] used to drill a tunnel for a Navajo Indian irrigation project in New Mexico (New York Times).

4. an intelligence agent who becomes deeply entrenched in legitimate activities over a period of years and does not spy until later assigned a mission: »

Counter-intelligence suspects a “mole”—the word used to designate a traitor in one's secret midst, a burrower from within who is working under the mandate of a foreign espionage organization (New Yorker).

╂[Middle English molle, or molde; origin uncertain; perhaps short for moldwarp]

mole³ «mohl», noun.

1. a barrier built of stone to break the force of the waves and sometimes serving as a pier; breakwater.

2. the harbor formed by it.

╂[< Latin mōlēs, -is a mass, dam]

mole⁴ «mohl», noun.

a fleshy or bloody mass occurring in the uterus.

╂[< French môle < Old French mole, learned borrowing from Latin mola misconception < Greek mýlē tumor on the womb]

mole⁵ «mohl», noun.

the molecular weight of a substance expressed in grams; gram molecule. Also, mol.

╂[< German Mole (kül] molecule < New Latin molecula]

mo|le⁶ «MOH lay», noun.

a Mexican sauce made of chocolate, chili, sesame seed, and spices, often served with meat and fowl.

╂[< Mexican Spanish mole < Nahuatl molli sauce]