Word Confusion: Mach vs Mock vs Muck

Plural: Mach

A.k.a., Mach number

Plural for the noun: mocks
Gerund: mocking

Third person present verb: mocks
Past tense or past participle: mocked
Present participle: mocking

Plural for the noun: muck
Gerund: mucking

Third person present verb: mucks
Past tense or past participle: mucked
Present participle: mucking

• [Of an examination, battle, etc.] Arranged for training or practice, or performed as a demonstration

Adverb:
In an insincere or pretending manner

Noun:
[Dated] An object of derision

A contemptuous or derisive imitative action or speech

• Mockery or derision

An imitation

• Counterfeit
• Fake

[Shipbuilding] A hard pattern representing the surface of a plate with a warped form, upon which the plate is beaten to shape after furnacing

[Journalism; printing; of a newspaper, magazine, etc.] To go to press

• Start printing

Verb, intransitive:
To use ridicule or derision

• Scoff
• [Often followed by at] Jeer

[Often followed by at] To behave with scorn or contempt (towards)

• Show ridicule (for)

Verb, transitive:
Tease or laugh at in a scornful or contemptuous manner

• Make something seem laughably unreal or impossible
• Mimic someone or something scornfully or contemptuously

To attack or treat with ridicule, contempt, or derision

To mimic, imitate, or counterfeit

To challenge

• Defy

To deceive, delude, or disappoint

• Farmyard manure, widely used as fertilizer
• Dung
• [Informal] Something regarded as worthless, sordid, or corrupt

A highly organic, dark or black soil, less than 50 percent combustible, often used as a manure

Mire

• Mud

Defamatory or sullying remarks

A state of chaos or confusion

[Chiefly British; informal] Something of no value

• Trash

Verb, transitive:
[Informal; muck up] Mishandle a job or situation

• Spoil something
• To ruin
• [Often followed by up] Bungle
• [Often followed by up] To put into a state of complete confusion

[Chiefly British; muck out] Remove manure and other dirt from a horse’s stable or other animal’s dwelling

[Rare] Spread manure on land

[Chiefly British; informal] Behave in a silly or aimless way, especially by wasting time when serious activity is expected

• Spoil something by interfering with it

“As the Mach number is a dimensionless quantity rather than a unit of measure, with Mach, the number comes after the unit.”

“In the decade preceding faster-than-sound human flight, aeronautical engineers referred to the speed of sound as Mach’s number, never ‘Mach 1′” (“Mach).

Jim threw up his hands in mock horror.

Dukakis will have a mock debate with Barnett.

Adverb:
He was but mock sorrowful.

He had a mock-serious manner to him.

She had mock-sympathetic words for us.

Noun:
He has become the mock of all his contemporaries.

She made mock of his attempts to interest her.

The agency can create a 3-d mock up, so you have a better idea.

Verb, intransitive:
George mocks at everything. Don’t take it personally.

They mocked at the idea.

Verb, transitive:
He mocks them as Washington insiders.

At Christmas, arguments and friction mock our pretense of peace.

His actions mock convention.

Paul can’t believe the muck that passes for music in the pop charts.

Janey made such a muck of things.

“Get this muck out of here,” he shouted.

Verb, transitive:
He spent his summers mucking about in boats.

They did not want designers mucking about with their newspapers.

“Jack, can you muck out the stables next?”

Geez, what more can he muck up?

Paul was mucking about with the printer, trying to get it to work.