moult
/mɒlt/US/moʊlt/
moult noun: the process of shedding or losing a covering of fur, feathers or skin etc.
Noun
moult (plural moults)
Verb
moult (third-person singular simple present moults, present participle moulting, simple past and past participle moulted)
- 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.
- […] molted into a new suit so that he could fly.1899, The Chautauquan, volume 29, page 134
- Synonyms:
- shed
- 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
Proper noun capitalized: Moult
Moult (plural Moults)
- A surname.
moult meaning in Tamil, Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
moult in Tamil
- இறகுதிர்ப்பு, சிறகுதிர், உருமாற்றம், கழற்றல், பிடரி
moult in Bengali
- খোলস ছাড়া, পালক ত্যাগ করা, নির্মোচন করা
moult in Malayalam
- skin or feathers cast off
- പടം paṭaṁ
moult in Kannada
- ಕಳೆ, ಬಿಡು, ಉದುರು, ಎರೆಯಿಕ್ಕು, ಎರೆಗೆಯ್
More languagesFewer languages
- moult in Indonesian
- pergantian kulit
Examples of moult in a sentence
- […]; but each bird, Red or Black, male or female, has invariably moulted true to colour - a Black has never moulted into a Red.1906, The Avicultural Magazine, volume 4, page 80:
- The engorged nymphae were collected on the 2nd August, 1910, and moulted into adults on the 19th September, 1910.1911, Report of the Director of Veterinary Research, page 212:
- With the personnel changes at Oxford, Reading could moult into a new centre for Wittgenstein studies, which also included John Preston and Max de Gaynesford .2022, Christoph C. Pfisterer, Nicole Rathgeb, Eva Schmidt, Wittgenstein and Beyond: Essays in Honour of Hans-Johann Glock, page 1994:
Synonyms of moult
Forms of moult
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | moults |
| alternative US | molt |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | moults |
| present participle | moulting |
| past participle | moulted |
| past | moulted |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Moults |
Origin of moult
From Middle English mouten, from Old English *mutian (attested in bemutian, “to exchange for”), from Latin mūtō (“to (re)move, change, vary, mutate, exchange, abandon”). Doublet of mute and mutate. The unetymological ⟨l⟩ was introduced into the spelling by mistakenly assuming a French origin with -l- as in fault and vault; compare solder, which in contrast has an etymological ⟨l⟩ (from Latin solidāre, “to make solid“) but was historically pronounced without that grapheme's sound.
Words formed from moult
Words that rhyme with moult
Questions about moult
- What does moult mean?
- Moult means the process of shedding or losing a covering of fur, feathers or skin etc.
- What is moult in Tamil?
- Moult in Tamil is இறகுதிர்ப்பு, சிறகுதிர், உருமாற்றம். See Moult meaning in Tamil.
- How do you use moult in a sentence?
- […]; but each bird, Red or Black, male or female, has invariably moulted true to colour - a Black has never moulted into a Red.
- What part of speech is moult?
- Moult can be a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce moult?
- Moult is pronounced /moʊlt/ (US).
- What is the plural of moult?
- The plural of moult is moults.
Words near moult in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: moult (page history and authors); Moult (page history and authors); moult (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); moult (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); moult (Kannada Wiktionary) (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-moult.wav.
Cite this entry: “moult.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/moult. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.