: 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
The team’s mascot, a bull named Torín, has been retrofitted with a removable red beard to match Turner’s ginger look.
—
Sam Blum, New York Times, 15 May 2026
There is a seemingly never-ending cascade of progress bars and checklists tied to road discovery, car photography and, in true Horizon tradition, smashing XP boards and mascots.
—Adam Ismail, The Drive, 14 May 2026
More recently, the Australian trio launched a website for a fake company called Takumi, whose mascot is a purple cartoon cat that wears a witch hat and flies on a broomstick.
—Walden Green, Pitchfork, 14 May 2026
But its relative youth and iconic mascot have not shielded the brand from many of the same issues dogging the company’s older brands, such as Maxwell House and Philadelphia.
—Amelia Lucas, CNBC, 13 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for mascot
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Sam Blum, New York Times, 15 May 2026
There is a seemingly never-ending cascade of progress bars and checklists tied to road discovery, car photography and, in true Horizon tradition, smashing XP boards and mascots.
—Adam Ismail, The Drive, 14 May 2026
More recently, the Australian trio launched a website for a fake company called Takumi, whose mascot is a purple cartoon cat that wears a witch hat and flies on a broomstick.
—Walden Green, Pitchfork, 14 May 2026
But its relative youth and iconic mascot have not shielded the brand from many of the same issues dogging the company’s older brands, such as Maxwell House and Philadelphia.
—Amelia Lucas, CNBC, 13 May 2026
See All Example Sentences for mascot
Cite this Entry
“Mascot.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/mascot. Accessed 21 May. 2026.
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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