Etymologically
Log in

molar

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the English word molar

Pronunciation

  • UK: /məʊlə(ɹ)/[1]
  • US: /ˈmoʊlɚ/[1]

molar1 grinding tooth

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1350 before 1350, a glossary of Walter de Bibbesworth
Borrowed from
Latin molaris via Middle English
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European *mele-
Etymology tree of molar1
inherited borrowed derived
Latin mola
Aromanian moarã
Latin molāris
English molar
From the same root · molar1
Latin immolō ← mola
Latin molīnus ← mola

Etymology

The grinding tooth is first inherited from Middle English molāres (“molar teeth”), a plural,[2][3] borrowed from Latin molāris (“grinding tooth”),[2][4] the noun use of the adjective meaning "belonging to a mill",[4][3] from mola (“millstone”) with the suffix -āris.[4][5] Etymonline and Barnhart start from the fuller phrase molāris dēns (“grinding tooth”).[6][7] Compare Anglo-Norman moeller and Middle French molaire, recorded as a noun in 1478 and as an adjective in 1503;[4] Weekley took the English word through these.[8] The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *mele- (“to crush, grind”),[6][3] the base from which Ayto also derives mill and meal.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A grinding tooth: before 1350, in the Latin plural molares in a glossary of Walter de Bibbesworth, where other copies have milteght and wangeteth.[4][2] Barnhart and Etymonline likewise date it to about or by the mid-14th century,[7][6] but Hoad and Collins give the 16th century,[10][11] and Dictionary.com 1535–45.[5] The Shorter Oxford notes that the noun at first had only the Latin plural form.[12]

Semantic evolution

Old English called these teeth cweornteð (“quern-teeth”).[6] Middle English kept the Latin plural: Trevisa (before 1398) wrote of ten broad teeth called molares, "abel to grinde mete".[2] The singular noun followed,[12] and the adjective, first in the phrase molar tooth, is recorded from Bacon's Sylva Sylvarum (1626).[4][7][13] Later zoology extended the noun to the flat teeth of fish (1880).[4]

Timeline

  • before 1350 – noun, in the plural molares, a grinding tooth.[4][2]
  • 1626 – adjective, in molar tooth.[4][7][13]
  • 1828 – adjective, of or relating to molar teeth.[4]
  • 1879 – adjective, of part of an insect's mandible.[4]
  • 1880 – noun, a fish's flat or rounded tooth.[4]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A broad tooth at the back of a mammal's mouth, used for grinding food; humans have twelve: The dentist filled two of her lower molars.[11][13][4]
  2. A fish's tooth with a flat or rounded surface.[4]

Adjective

  1. Of, relating to or being a molar: the molar region of the jaw.[11][4]
  2. Used for grinding.[11][13]

Word family

  • premolar
  • molariform

molar2 of mass; of a mole

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1862
From
Latin moles
Ultimate origin
Latin mōlēs
Etymology tree of molar2
inherited borrowed derived
Latin mōlēs
English molar

Etymology

The adjective meaning "of mass" is from Latin mōlēs (“a mass”) with the suffix -ar.[4][13][14][12][8] Its chemical sense takes the same suffix on mole, the unit,[4][7][6][12][3] which comes from German Mol, shortened from Molekül (“molecule”).[4][6] The OED finds the German word in Wilhelm Ostwald in 1893, whereas Etymonline has him coin it in 1900.[4][6] Collins and the Oxford Dictionary of English derive the adjective from the Latin noun alone.[11][15] The psychological sense is probably modelled on French molaire, recorded in such a sense in 1908.[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Of or relating to mass, as opposed to molecules or atoms: Merriam-Webster gives 1862 as the first known use,[13] while the OED's first quotation is from J. Tyndall's Fragments of Science (1871).[4] Dictionary.com has 1860–65.[5]

Semantic evolution

The adjective began in physics, where it set the behaviour of large masses of matter against that of molecules.[4][13] In chemistry, Etymonline, Barnhart and the OED all date "of one mole of a substance" to 1902, the OED from A. Findlay's translation of Ostwald,[6][7][4] with the sense of a solution holding one mole per litre following in 1927.[4] In psychology, from C. D. Broad in 1925, it describes large units of behaviour as distinct from their elements.[4][13]

Timeline

  • 1862 – of or relating to a mass of matter.[13] The OED's first quotation is from 1871.[4]
  • 1902 – of or relating to one mole of a substance.[4][7][6]
  • 1925 – in psychology, of a large unit of behaviour.[4]
  • 1927 – of a solution, containing one or more moles of solute per litre.[4]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. Of or relating to a mass of matter as a whole, as distinguished from the properties of its molecules or atoms.[13][4][12]
  2. (chemistry) Of or relating to one mole of a substance; per unit amount of substance: the molar volume of a gas.[11][4][12]
  3. (chemistry) Of a solution, containing one mole, or a stated number of moles, of solute per litre.[11][13][4]
  4. (psychology) Of or relating to large units of behaviour, such as a set of responses serving one goal.[13][4][12]

Word family

  • molarity
  • osmolarity
  • equimolar
  • molar volume
  • molar heat capacity

Usage notes

Collins notes that the use for a solution with one mole of solute per litre is not recommended in technical writing.[11] A rarer adjective molar, recorded from 1822, relates to an abnormal mass in the uterus, as in molar pregnancy; it is formed from the medical noun mole or from mola.[4][13]

References

  1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e 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 The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
  5. ^ a b c Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ a b c d e f g Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
  8. ^ a b Weekley, Ernest (1921), An Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, London: John Murray
  9. ^ Ayto, John (2005), Word Origins: The Secret Histories of English Words from A to Z, 2nd ed., London: A & C Black
  10. ^ Hoad, T. F., ed. (1986), The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  11. ^ a b c d e f g h Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
  12. ^ a b c d e f g Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
  13. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
  14. ^ Klein, Ernest. A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the English Language. 2 vols. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1966–1967.
  15. ^ Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Molar.” Etymologically, 5 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/en/molar. Accessed 5 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·