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Mutt can now be used with either affection or disdain to refer to a dog that is not purebred, but in the word's early history, in the U.S. around the turn of the 20th century, it could also be used to describe a person—and not kindly: mutt was another word for "fool." The word's history lies in another insult. It comes from muttonhead, another Americanism that also means essentially "fool." Muttonhead had been around since the early 19th century but it was not unlike an older insult with the same meaning: people had been calling one another "sheep's heads" since the mid-16th century.
Examples of mutt in a Sentence
Saman Shafiq, USA Today, 7 Nov. 2025
That grieving parents María (Noomi Rapace) and Ingvar (Hilmir Snær Guðnason) name the mutt after their own dead daughter, Ada, pushes the film into the realm of a psychological fever dream, albeit one that operates on a dry, profoundly deadpan register.
—Dennis Perkins, Entertainment Weekly, 31 Oct. 2025
Two dogs came into the living room to inspect the uproar, mutts from the reservation.
—Literary Hub, 17 Oct. 2025
That rescue mutt had been known for years as Everest, but enough of that.
—Jim Cramer, Fortune, 1 Oct. 2025
See All Example Sentences for mutt
Cite this Entry
“Mutt.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mutt. Accessed 13 Nov. 2025.
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