Why is a computer mouse called a mouse?

The original mouse was a small, hand-sized pointing device built in the 1960s, and one of its early prototypes had a cable trailing out the back like a tail.

That gave people an easy visual hook. Instead of a dry technical label, they got a word that felt familiar, compact, and slightly mischievous.

The name stuck because it described the thing you could see at a glance: a little object that sat on the desk and scurried the cursor around the screen.