What is "mascot"

Mascot \Mas"cot\, Mascotte \Mas"cotte\, n. [Through French fr. Pr. mascot a little sorcerer or magician, mascotto witchcraft, sorcery.]

1. A person who is supposed to bring good luck to the household to which he or she belongs.

2. Hence: Anything that brings good luck; especially, an animal kept by a group, as a sports team, to serve as a symbol and to bring luck.

"talisman, charm," 1881, from provincial French mascotte "sorcerer's charm, 'faerie friend,' good luck piece" (19c.), of uncertain origin, perhaps from or related to Provençal mascoto "sorcery, fetish" (a Narbonnese manuscript of 1233 has mascotto "procuress, enchantment, bewitchment in gambling"), from masco "witch," from Old Provençal masca, itself of unknown origin, perhaps from Medieval Latin masca "mask, specter, nightmare" (see mask (n.)). Popularized by French composer Edmond Audran's 1880 comic operetta "La Mascotte," about a household "fairy" who gives luck to an Italian peasant, performed in a toned-down translation in England from fall 1881.

n. 1 something thought to bring good luck 2 something, especially a person or animal, used to symbolize a sports team, company, organization or other group

n. a person or animal that is adopted by a team or other group as a symbolic figure

A mascot is any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck, or anything used to represent a group with a common public identity, such as a school, professional sports team, society, military unit, or brand name. Mascots are also used as fictional, representative spokespeople for consumer products, such as the rabbit used in advertising and marketing for the General Mills brand of breakfast cereal, Trix.

In the world of sports, mascots are also used for merchandising. Team mascots are often confused with team nicknames. While the two can be interchangeable, they are not always the same. For example, the athletic teams of the University of Alabama are nicknamed the Crimson Tide, while their mascot is an elephant named Big Al. Team mascots may take the form of a logo, person, live animal, inanimate object, or a costumed character, and often appear at team matches and other related events, sports mascots are often used as marketing tools for their teams to children. Since the mid-20th century, costumed characters have provided teams with an opportunity to choose a fantasy creature as their mascot, as is the case with the Philadelphia Phillies' mascot, the Phillie Phanatic.

Costumed mascots are commonplace, and are regularly used as goodwill ambassadors in the community for their team, company, or organization such as the U.S. Forest Service's Smokey Bear.

Mascot is a term for any person, animal, or object thought to bring luck.

Mascot is a software search engine that uses mass spectrometry data to identify proteins from peptide sequence databases. Mascot is widely used by research facilities around the world. Mascot uses a probabilistic scoring algorithm for protein identification that was adapted from the MOWSE algorithm. Mascot is freely available to use on the website of Matrix Science 1. A License is required for in-house use where more features can be incorporated.

Mascot was a car made by AB Rååverken in Helsingborg around 1920.

Sold both as a kit car and in finished form it was a way of converting a motor cycle to a type of cyclecar. Usually based on an Excelsior two cylinder 16 HP motorcycle (optionally a Harley-Davidson, Reading Standard or Indian) the steering, seat and front wheel were removed and the motorcycle frame was attached to a low weight body that added the "missing" three wheels. The track width was , length about and weight . It was steered via a steering wheel, had pedals for throttle and brakes and a gear stick and was fitted with windscreen, doors, soft top, comfortable seats and a single front light. It seated two persons in tandem.