moat
/məʊt/US/moʊt/
moat noun: a deep, wide defensive ditch, normally filled with water, surrounding a fortified habitation.
Noun
moat (plural moats)
- A deep, wide defensive ditch, normally filled with water, surrounding a fortified habitation.
- Synonyms:
- fosse
- A characteristic of a business that enhances its resilience against competitive pressures, arising from the inherent nature of its products, services, brand, or other structural advantages.
- No matter how good your company's product is or how quickly the industry is growing, if there is no moat, competitors will invade your castle and burn it down.2013, John Mauldin, Jonathan Tepper, Code Red: How to Protect Your Savings From the Coming Crisis, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN
- “I think ‘moats’ are lame,” Mr. Musk had said during a Tesla earnings call. It was a criticism of an economic principle that Mr. Buffett had coined in 1999 and that has become something of a mantra for his faithful: Invest in businesses “that have wide, sustainable moats around them.”2018 May 7, Andrew Ross Sorkin, quoting Elon Musk, “Elon Musk Wants to Fill Warren Buffett’s ‘Moat’ With Candy, but It Still Holds Water”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
- A circular lowland between a resurgent dome and the walls of the caldera surrounding it.
- A clear ring outside the eyewall of a tropical cyclone.
- A hill or mound.
Verb
moat (third-person singular simple present moats, present participle moating, simple past and past participle moated)
- To surround with a moat.
Proper noun capitalized: Moat
Moat (plural Moats)
- A surname.
moat meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu
moat in Hindi
- defensive ditch
- ख़ंदक़ xandaq, परिखा parikhā, खाई khāī, खाल khāl
moat in Tamil
- defensive ditch
- பாதுகாப்பு பள்ளம் pātukāppu paḷḷam, அகழி akaḻi
moat in Marathi
- moat
- खंदक khandak
moat in Urdu
- defensive ditch
- خندق xandaq, کھائی khāi
More languagesFewer languages
- moat in Bengali
- পরিখা, দুর্গের চারদিকের জলপূর্ণ গর্ত
- moat in Telugu
- అగడ్త agaḍta
- moat in Kannada
- ಅಗಳು, ಅಗಳ್ತೆ, ಕಂದಕ
- moat in Sinhala
- අගල agala
- moat in Arabic
- خَنْدَق ḵandaq
- moat in Persian
- خندق xandaq, پارگین pârgin
- moat in Thai
- คูปราสาท koo bpraasàat, คูเมือง koo meuang
- moat in Vietnamese
- hào, hố
- moat in Myanmar
- ကျုံး kyum:
Examples of moat in a sentence
- The town wall was surrounded by a moat.
- The castle moat should hold the enemy in check.
- The castle's moat served a protective function.
Synonyms of moat
Forms of moat
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | moats |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | moats |
| present participle | moating |
| past participle | moated |
| past | moated |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Moats |
Origin of moat
From Middle English mote, from Old French mote (“mound, embankment”); compared also to Old French motte (“hillock, lump, clod, turf”), from Medieval Latin mota (“a mound, hill”), of Germanic origin, perhaps via Frankish *mot, *motta (“mud, peat, bog, turf”), from Proto-Germanic *mutô, *mudraz, *muþraz (“dirt, filth, mud, swamp”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mut- (“dark, dirty”). Cognate with Alemannic German Mott, Mutte (“peat, turf”), Bavarian Mott (“peat, turf”), dialectal Dutch mot (“dust, fine sand”), Saterland Frisian mut (“grit, litter, humus”), Swedish muta (“to drizzle”), Old English mot (“speck, particle”). More at mote, mud, smut. As term for a business strategy, popularized by American investor Warren Buffett.
From moat, a topographic surname for someone who lived near a moat.
Words formed from moat
Words that rhyme with moat
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- quote
- connote
- groat
- remote
- scrote
- tote
- bote
- capote
- denote
- devote
- dote
- mote
- smote
- solar boat
- undercoat
- cote
- demote
- gloat
- pote
- refloat
- rote
- undernote
- wrote
- yote
- blót
- confidence vote
- disease boat
- end of quote
- end quote
- entrecôte
- flote
- frote
- ignote
- isot
- lote
- loth
- misquote
- moth
- phot
- recoat
- rewrote
- shoat
- stoat
- swagger coat
- troat
- two hundred fifty-sixth note
- underquote
- underwrote
Questions about moat
- What does moat mean?
- Moat means a deep, wide defensive ditch, normally filled with water, surrounding a fortified habitation.
- What is moat in Hindi?
- Moat in Hindi is ख़ंदक़ (xandaq), परिखा (parikhā), खाई (khāī). See Moat meaning in Hindi.
- What part of speech is moat?
- Moat can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce moat?
- Moat is pronounced /məʊt/ (UK).
- What is the plural of moat?
- The plural of moat is moats.
Words near moat in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: moat (page history and authors); Moat (page history and authors); खंदक (Marathi) (page history and authors); moat (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); అగడ్త (Telugu) (page history and authors); moat (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); අගල (Sinhala) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-mote.wav.
Cite this entry: “moat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/moat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.