Word.ws English Dictionary

molt

molt is the US standard spelling of moult.

molt is the simple past of melt.

Meaning of moult

Verb

moult (third-person singular simple present moults, present participle moulting, simple past and past participle moulted)

  1. (intransitive) To undergo the process of shedding or losing a covering of hair or fur, feathers, skin, horns, etc, and replacing it with a fresh one; to change by moulting.
    • Birds moult periodically.
    Synonyms:
    shed
  2. (transitive) To shed in such a manner.
    • Turtle-droves […] moulted their feathers.1929, Percy MacKaye, Claude Merton Wise, The Sphinx: A Comedy in One Act, page 35

See all 5 meanings of moult

Meaning of melt

Verb

melt (third-person singular simple present melts, present participle melting, simple past melted or (rare) molt, past participle melted or (rare) molt or molten)

  1. (ergative) To change (or to be changed) from a solid state to a liquid state, usually by a gradual heat.
    • I melted butter to make a cake.
    Synonyms:
    to found, to thaw
  2. (figuratively, intransitive) To dissolve, disperse, vanish.
    • His troubles melted away.
  3. (ambitransitive, figuratively) To soften, as by a warming or kindly influence; to relax; to render gentle or susceptible to mild influences; sometimes, in a bad sense, to take away the firmness of; to weaken.
    • Thou would'st have […] melted down thy youth.c. 1605–1608 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Tymon of Athens”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  4. (intransitive) To be discouraged.
  5. (figuratively, intransitive) To be emotionally softened or touched.
    • She melted when she saw the romantic message in the Valentine's Day card.
  6. (colloquial, intransitive) To be very hot and sweat profusely.
    • I need shade! I'm melting!

See all 14 meanings of melt

Forms of molt

Verb
third-person singular presentmolts
present participlemolting
past participlemolted
pastmolted
Noun
pluralmolts

Origin of molt

From moult.

From Middle English molte, the 2sg and subj. sg. past tense of melten (“to melt”), and also from a reduced form of molten (the general plural indicative past tense, used with we and they), from Old English multe, multon and multen, respectively the 2sg / subj. sg., plural indicative, and plural subjunctive preterite forms of meltan (“to melt, to digest, to be fully destroyed”).

Words formed from molt

Questions about molt

What is molt the US standard spelling of?
Molt is the US standard spelling of moult.

Words near molt in the dictionary

  1. mols
  2. molsidomine
  3. Molsom
  4. Molson
  5. Molson muscle
  6. molt
  7. moltable
  8. molted
  9. Moltema
  10. molten
  11. molten chocolate cake

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: molt (page history and authors); moult (page history and authors); melt (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:

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