moat

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle English mote (“mound, embankment”),^[2][3][4][5] borrowed from Old French mote (“mound, hillock, embankment; castle on a hill”),^[4][5][3][6] now motte (“clod, mound”),^[5][7][4] and directly borrowed from Medieval Latin mota (“mound, fortified height”).^[4][3][2] The OED treats moat as a variant of the older mote, mound, now kept apart in spelling.^[8][9] The Anglo-Norman noun, recorded from 1160–74, meant a mound or hill and a castle on a hill.^[10] The further origin is uncertain:^[3][4][11] Etymonline and Ayto suggest Gaulish mutt, mutta,^[4][12] Partridge a Celtic source,^[13] and Klein a pre-Latin one,^[7] while the Middle English Dictionary gives a Germanic source and the American Heritage Dictionary and Weekley compare mud.^[2][14][15] The verb is moten, from the noun.^[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

As mote: a mound or hill, before 1300, in A Mayde Cristes;^[2] Barnhart and Etymonline date this sense to about 1300.^[3][4] The sense "ditch around a castle" first appears in a manuscript of Langland's Piers Plowman (text before 1376).^[8][3]

Semantic evolution

The word first named the mound on which a castle stood, and the castle itself.^[2][4] Ayto explains that the use for a castle mound led, in Old French or Anglo-Norman, to its use for the ditch around such a mound,^[12][4] and Etymonline and the MED compare the double sense of ditch and dike.^[4][2] The mound sense is now obsolete in standard English,^[4] and was later taken up by the specialized form motte;^[12][8] in Scotland, northern England and Ireland moat was still used for an earthen mound or tumulus.^[17] From 1463 the word also meant a pond or fish pond, now regional.^[8][5][9] The verb, to surround with a moat, is recorded from about 1440,^[8][4] and figuratively, to cut off as if by a moat, from 1617.^[8] American underworld slang of 1848 used moat for a river.^[18] Merriam-Webster adds artificial channels, such as those that keep animals in zoos, and natural features that resemble a moat.^[16]

Timeline

• before 1300 – mote, mound, hill.^[2]
• c. 1400 – a deep ditch around a castle or town.^[8][3]
• c. 1440 – verb, to surround with a moat.^[8]
• 1463 – a pond or fish pond.^[8]
• 1617 – verb, figurative, to isolate as if by a moat.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A deep, wide ditch, usually filled with water, around a castle, fort or town as a defence: The drawbridge was raised over the moat.^[19][16][8]
2. A channel like this used to keep animals in a zoo enclosure, or in landscaping.^[16]
3. A natural feature resembling a moat, as at the edge of a glacier or around a volcanic cone.^[16]
4. (regional) A pond or lake, especially a fish pond.^[8][9][5]

Verb

1. To surround with a moat, or as if with one: a moated grange.^[19][16][8]

Word family

• moated
• moatlike
• unmoated

Related words

• motte
• mote

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Kurath, Hans; Kuhn, Sherman M.; Lewis, Robert E., eds. (1952–2001), Middle English Dictionary, Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press; online edition ed. Frances McSparran et al. (2000–2018)
3. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b c d e Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Anglo-Norman Dictionary (AND2), Aberystwyth University, anglo-norman.net (2nd ed., 2005–)
11. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
12. ^ a b c Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
13. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
14. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
15. ^ Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
16. ^ a b c d e f Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
17. ^ Wright, Joseph, ed. (1898–1905), The English Dialect Dictionary, 6 vols., Oxford: Henry Frowde; via EDD Online 4.0, University of Innsbruck (CC BY 4.0)
18. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com
19. ^ a b Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins