Word.ws English Dictionary

moll

/mɒl/

moll noun: a female companion of a gangster or other criminal, especially a former or current prostitute.

Noun

moll (plural molls)

  1. A female companion of a gangster or other criminal, especially a former or current prostitute.
    • The Bat—they called him the Bat.[…]. He[…]played a lone hand,[…]. Most lone wolves had a moll at any rate—women were their ruin—but if the Bat had a moll, not even the grapevine telegraph could locate her.1920, Mary Roberts Rinehart, Avery Hopwood, chapter I, in The Bat: A Novel from the Play (Dell Book; 241), New York, N.Y.: Dell Publishing Company, →OCLC, page 01
    • "Makes me feel like a pirate," said Josella as she buckled hers on. "Better, I imagine, to be a pirate than a pirate's moll," I told her.1951, John Wyndham, The Day of the Triffids, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, published 1954, page 72
  2. A prostitute or woman with loose sexual morals.
    Synonyms:
    molly
  3. (Australia, New Zealand, derogatory, slang) Bitch, slut; an insulting epithet applied to a female.
  4. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) A girlfriend of a bikie.
    • The bikies ‘molls’ included Susan Lloyd as Tart; Victoria Anoux as Flossie; and Rosalind Talamini as Sunshine.1979, Eric Reade, History and Heartburn: The Saga of Australian Film, 1896-1978, page 209
    • ‘Oh God!’ groans Julie who once was a bikie moll back in the early seventies. ‘Hope it′s no one I know.’ But the Machismos turn out to be based on a New Zealand gang, which assembled in Australia after her time.1995, Debra Adelaide, The Hotel Albatross, page 76
  5. (Australia, New Zealand, slang) A girlfriend of a surfie; blends with pejorative sense.
  6. (slang) A female fan of extreme metal, grunge or hardcore punk, especially the girlfriend of a musician of those aforementioned genres.

Adjective

moll (not comparable)

  1. (obsolete) minor; in the minor key.
    • Bach's Gavotte in B Moll

Proper noun capitalized: Moll

Moll

  1. (archaic) A pet name for Mary.
    • Theſe vvere they that gave me that Name of Moll Flanders: For it vvas no more of Affinity vvith my real Name, or vvith any of the Names I had ever gone by than black, is of Kin to vvhite, […]1722 (indicated as 1721), [Daniel Defoe], The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, &c. […], London: […] W[illiam Rufus] Chetwood, […]; and T. Edling, […], published 1722, →OCLC, page...
  2. (alternative, possibly older usage) Alternative form of Mol, Belgium

Examples of moll in a sentence

  • The nostalgic canonization of the Kennedy presidency, the perfect antidote to the Nixon stench, was befouled by the revelation of Jack Kennedy’s mob-moll paramour.2014 July 31, Frank Rich, “A Distant Mirror”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
  • Gilling first appeared as the biker′s moll Vanessa in Stone (1974) and the beautiful, evil cabin attendant in Number 96 (1974).2009, Albert Moran, Errol Vieth, The A to Z of Australian and New Zealand Cinema, page 142:

Synonyms of moll

Forms of moll

pluralmolls
alternative formmole

Plural of moll: molls

Origin of moll

From Moll, an archaic nickname for Mary (see also Molly).

From German Moll, from Latin mollis (“soft, tender, elegiac”). Compare molle (“flat (in music)”). Cognate with Norwegian Bokmål moll.

From Molly, a diminutive lambdacism of Mary. Compare Sally from Sarah and Hal from Harry.

Words formed from moll

Phrases with moll

Words that rhyme with moll

7 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about moll

What does moll mean?
Moll means a female companion of a gangster or other criminal, especially a former or current prostitute.
How do you use moll in a sentence?
The nostalgic canonization of the Kennedy presidency, the perfect antidote to the Nixon stench, was befouled by the revelation of Jack Kennedy’s mob-moll paramour.
What part of speech is moll?
Moll can be a noun, an adjective or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce moll?
Moll is pronounced /mɒl/.
What is the plural of moll?
The plural of moll is molls.

Words near moll in the dictionary

  1. Moliterno
  2. Molitor
  3. Molitors
  4. Molizon
  5. molka
  6. moll
  7. moll buzzer
  8. moll buzzers
  9. Moll Kelley
  10. Moll Kelly
  11. molla

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: moll (page history and authors); Moll (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: en-au-moll.ogg, LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-moll.wav.

Cite this entry: “moll.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/moll. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.