Meaning

noun large northern deer with enormous flattened antlers in the male; called `elk' in Europe and `moose' in North America

originEarlier mus, moos, from an Eastern Algonquian language name for the animal, such as Massachusett moos, mws, Narragansett moos or Penobscot mos (cognate to Abenaki moz), from Proto-Algonquian *mo·swa (“it strips”), referring to how a moose strips tree bark when feeding: compare Massachusett moos-u (“he strips, cuts smooth”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0