mooches

verb

present tense third-person singular of mooch
1
as in begs
to live by relying on someone else's generosity or hospitality without sharing in the cost or responsibility he's always mooching off of his friends, even though he can easily pay his own way

Synonyms & Similar Words

Relevance
2
as in sneaks
to move about in a sly or secret manner I suspect she's mooching around in the background and keeping an eye on us

Synonyms & Similar Words
3
as in wanders
to move about from place to place aimlessly kids on vacation mooching about the house and looking for something to do

Synonyms & Similar Words

Example Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for mooches
  1. begs
  2. sneaks
  3. wanders
  4. lurks
  5. roams
  6. slips
  7. drifts
  8. steals
Verb
  • Nobody begs Hollywood studios to cut blockbuster movie budgets so smaller productions have a better shot at the box office.
    — Alejandro Avila OutKick, FOXNews.com, 4 Aug. 2026
  • Like other monochrome digitals, the GR IV Monochrome begs to be used for Raw capture.
    — Jim Fisher, PC Magazine, 31 July 2026
Definition of begs
Verb
  • Andruw Jones sneaks in on his ninth year, his next-to-last try.
    — Greg Cote July 26, Miami Herald, 26 July 2026
  • And that’s where the Leonard situation sneaks into the equation.
    — Fred Katz, New York Times, 16 July 2026
Definition of sneaks
Verb
  • Later on, Bret wanders away from his friends and runs into Debbie’s father, Terry Schaffer (Wes Bentley), entertaining handsome young men in the hot tub.
    — Louis Peitzman, Vulture, 6 Aug. 2026
  • Mbaye shares that loyalty, although his confidence occasionally wanders into more dangerous territory.
    — Noel Burgess, Forbes.com, 28 July 2026
Definition of wanders
Verb
  • But amid the crooning local singers and walks down memory lane, trouble lurks.
    — Ben Travers, IndieWire, 29 July 2026
  • But now, China lurks just offstage, preparing to bring the steel era’s industrial logic back into the story, using scale, subsidies and price pressure to test how durable today’s AI fortunes really are.
    — Nick Lichtenberg, Fortune, 27 July 2026
Definition of lurks
Verb
  • North Carolina will be under the microscope as long as Bill Belichick roams the sidelines in Chapel Hill.
    — Antonio Morales, New York Times, 5 June 2026
  • Today, the herd roams the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and is managed in partnership with the local fire company, which hosts the annual pony swim—a beloved local tradition.
    — Travel + Leisure Editors, Travel + Leisure, 19 May 2026
Definition of roams
Verb
  • The eclipse will unfold during August's new moon phase, as the lunar disk slips silently between the sun and Earth in the daytime sky.
    — Anthony Wood, Space.com, 9 Aug. 2026
  • The HushJet Mini has a slender design that slips right inside my travel backpack’s bottle pouch.
    — Sian Babish, PEOPLE, 8 Aug. 2026
Definition of slips
Verb
  • The public internet has been scraped, licensing deals are expensive and slow, and synthetic data drifts away from reality when a model learns mostly from itself.
    — Jon Markman, Forbes.com, 6 Aug. 2026
  • Negotiate your fee and stand firm in your decision before the meeting drifts into vague promises of great exposure and future possibilities.
    — Valerie Mesa, PEOPLE, 5 Aug. 2026
Definition of drifts
Verb
  • Schmitt, 27, was in the midst of a career year, having already reached career highs in homers (21), RBIs (55) and steals (nine).
    — Justice delos Santos, Mercury News, 3 Aug. 2026
  • Though when Pierce Brosnan took up the role in the 1999 remake, Crown steals Monet’s San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk (1908–12) from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, though that painting actually belongs to the National Museum Cardiff in Wales.
    — Maximilíano Durón, ARTnews.com, 31 July 2026
Definition of steals
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Browse Nearby Words

moochers
mooches
mooching
See all Nearby Words

Cite this Entry

“Mooches.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/mooches. Accessed 11 Aug. 2026.

Copy Citation
Last Updated: - Updated example sentences
Love words? Need even more definitions?

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

See More

7 Pairs of Commonly Confused Words

Merriam-Webster’s Great Big List of Words You Love to Hate

Is that lie 'bald-faced' or 'bold-faced'?

'A' or 'an'? What about before 'h'? An Indefinite Article Guide

Why is '-ed' sometimes pronounced at the end of a word?
See More

Popular in Wordplay

See More

The Longest Long Words List

It's a Scorcher! Words for the Summer Heat

14 Phobias You Probably Haven't Heard Of

The Words of the Week - Aug. 7

12 Lovely and Unusual Words for the Natural World
See More

Popular

See More

7 Pairs of Commonly Confused Words

The Longest Long Words List

It's a Scorcher! Words for the Summer Heat
See More

Games & Quizzes

See All
Play Quordle: Guess all four words in a limited number of tries. Each of your guesses must be a real 5-letter word.
Quordle Can you solve 4 words at once?
Play Blossom: Solve today's spelling word game by finding as many words as you can using just 7 letters. Longer words score more points.
Blossom Pick the best words!
Play Missing Letter: a crossword with a twist. Each of the 25 puzzle words start with a different letter of the alphabet. Which letter is missing?
The Missing Letter A daily crossword with a twist
fridge-magnet-letters
Drop a Letter Quiz August 2026 Drop a letter from a word to make a totally diffe...
See All