Word.ws English Dictionary

mottes and baileys

mottes and baileys is the plural of motte and bailey.

Meaning of motte and bailey

Noun

motte and bailey (plural mottes and baileys)

  1. The predecessor of the European castle, having a raised earth mound (the motte) topped with a tower (or donjon), and a wooden ring fortification surrounding a courtyard (the bailey).
    • Should an inquiring stranger ask an Irish countryman if there were any "mottes" in the neighbourhood he might be met with unexpected but none the less unrestrained laughter, as in semi-slang the word has another meaning very far from that of a castle mound!1939, H. Lawlor, “Mote, Moat, or Motte?”, in Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 2, 208-210, p. 210
  2. (rhetoric) A form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two similar positions, one modest and easier to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial (the "bailey"), by advancing the controversial position, but when challenged, insisting that they are only advancing the more modest position.

Questions about mottes and baileys

What is mottes and baileys the plural of?
Mottes and baileys is the plural of motte and bailey.

Words near mottes and baileys in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mottes and baileys (page history and authors); motte and bailey (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.

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