How to pronounce mouse in American English

IPA /maʊs/ Syllables 1 · mows Stress 1st syllable

MOWS

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Americans pronounce mouse as MOWS (/maʊs/). You'll hear it in sentences like "Look at the brown mouse" or "The small mouse ran right past his open mouth" — more examples below.

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Sound by sound

Every sound in "mouse".

1 syllable, 3 sounds. Explore each sound's mouth shape and how it's made.

m/m/

Press your lips together. Air flows through your nose. Vocal cords vibrate.

ow/aʊ/

Start with a dropped jaw and flat tongue. Glide into a relaxed, slightly rounded lip position as the back of the tongue stretches up.

s/s/

Place your tongue tip near the roof of your mouth behind your top teeth. Push air through the narrow gap. No voicing.

In real conversation

Hear "mouse" in the wild.

Click any sentence to see the full breakdown — every link, every reduction, every flap-T.

"Her mouth remains closed when she sees a mouse."

her MOWTH ruh·MAYNZ KLOHZD wehn shee SEEZ uh MOWS

"Look at the brown mouse."

LUUK uht dhuh BROWN MOWS

"The small mouse ran right past his open mouth."

dhuh SMAHL MOWS RAN RAHYT PAST hihz OH·puhn MOWTH

"The brown mouse was found on the ground outside."

dhuh BROWN MOWS wuhz FOWND ahn dhuh GROWND OWT·sahyd

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Questions

Questions people ask about this.

Is the American pronunciation of "mouse" different from British English?

American English uses different vowel shapes, a relaxed retroflex R, and connected-speech tricks like flap-T and glottal-stop T that British Received Pronunciation generally avoids. The respell "MOWS" reflects the casual American form; British dictionaries typically print a citation form with crisper consonants and different vowel choices.