Word.ws English Dictionary

mottes

mottes is the plural of motte.

Meaning of motte

Noun

motte (plural mottes)

  1. A raised earth mound, often topped with a wooden or stone structure and surrounded with a ditch.
    • The motte was a mound made of earth and surrounded by a ditch.2013 September 13, Richard Huscroft, The Norman Conquest: A New Introduction, Routledge, →ISBN
  2. An argument which is uncontroversial and easy to defend (in the context of a motte and bailey fallacy).
    • Coordinate term: bailey

See all 3 meanings of motte

Phrases with mottes

Questions about mottes

What is mottes the plural of?
Mottes is the plural of motte.

Words near mottes in the dictionary

  1. motte and bailey
  2. motte-and-bailey
  3. mottephobia
  4. Mottershead
  5. Mottersheads
  6. mottes
  7. mottes and baileys
  8. mottes-and-baileys
  9. mottetti
  10. mottetto
  11. mottettoes

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mottes (page history and authors); motte (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: “mottes.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mottes. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.