Moat

How to spell moat

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce moat

What does moat mean?

1. nounA deep, wide ditch, usually filled with water, dug around a castle or fortified building as a defence.

Moat in a sentence

• The castle was surrounded by a deep moat filled with water.

• Tourists watched ducks paddle across the moat below the ramparts.

Where does moat come from?

Language of origin: French

Moat came into English in the 1300s from Old French mote, which originally meant a mound or raised bank of earth rather than a hollow. A medieval castle was often built on such a mound, and the deep ditch dug around it to defend it gradually took over the word, so the sense flipped from the high earthwork to the low water-filled trench beside it. English borrowed the term during the period of Norman castle-building, when these defensive ditches were a common feature of fortifications. The same Old French root also gave us 'motte', the name still used for the earthen mound in a 'motte-and-bailey' castle. The spelling trap is mostly that moat sounds exactly like 'mote' (a tiny speck), so the silent linking of sound to the wrong everyday word is the danger.

How the word is built

• moat (single root, no affixes; from Old French mote 'mound, embankment')