: a person, animal, or object adopted by a group as a symbolic figure especially to bring them good luck
the team had a mountain lion as their mascot
Examples of mascot in a Sentence
The team had a mountain lion as their mascot.
she wears a mascot made of ebony and silver on a chain around her neck
Recent Examples on the Web
Farther north, Louie the Cardinal wins the ACC mascot championship race at Charlotte Motor Speedway in Concord to kickoff the ACC Men’s Basketball Tournament in Charlotte; team mascots compete on the famed quarter-mile at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
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The Pham, Charlotte Observer, 9 Apr. 2025
Getting to the playoffs should be the real expectation, and whatever happens in October is about luck and health more than preparation or fast-food mascots.
—Keith Law, New York Times, 26 Mar. 2025
While the protesters deployed some nationalist imagery, wielding Serbian flags and photos of Jesus while following a mascot of the World War II royalist Gen. Draza Mihailovic, the overall vibe of the Belgrade bonanza was closer to Woodstock than the March on Washington.
—Tiana Lowe Doescher, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 21 Mar. 2025
If my child’s school used his disability as a mascot?
—Jeremy Gorner, Chicago Tribune, 11 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for mascot
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The Pham, Charlotte Observer, 9 Apr. 2025
Getting to the playoffs should be the real expectation, and whatever happens in October is about luck and health more than preparation or fast-food mascots.
—Keith Law, New York Times, 26 Mar. 2025
While the protesters deployed some nationalist imagery, wielding Serbian flags and photos of Jesus while following a mascot of the World War II royalist Gen. Draza Mihailovic, the overall vibe of the Belgrade bonanza was closer to Woodstock than the March on Washington.
—Tiana Lowe Doescher, Washington Examiner - Political News and Conservative Analysis About Congress, the President, and the Federal Government, 21 Mar. 2025
If my child’s school used his disability as a mascot?
—Jeremy Gorner, Chicago Tribune, 11 Apr. 2025
See All Example Sentences for mascot
Cite this Entry
“Mascot.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mascot. Accessed 22 Apr. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
mascot
noun
mas·cot
ˈmas-ˌkät 
also -kət
: a person, animal, or object supposed to bring good luck
Etymology
from French mascotte "mascot," from a Romance word mascoto "charm," literally "little witch," from masco "witch," from Latin masca "witch"
Word Origin
The word mascot is an example of words that come to have a more pleasant meaning as they develop through the years and through many languages. The ancestor of mascot is the Latin word masca, used in the Middle Ages to mean "witch." Masca passed into the Romance speech of southern France as masco. Later it developed a derivative mascoto, literally meaning "little witch" but actually used to mean "charm" or "magic spell." A magic spell can be used for good as well as bad. Already, then, we have the beginnings of a change to a nicer idea in the basic use of the word. The word mascoto came to be mascotte in modern French, meaning a "good luck charm." It was made popular by the operetta La Mascotte in 1880. In this operetta "la mascotte" is the lovely young woman Bettina, whose influence brings victories to the army of the prince of Pisa. English later borrowed the word as mascot, with the meaning "a person or thing thought to bring good luck." Today the word is often used to refer to an animal chosen by a school or college as a good luck symbol for its sports teams.
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