Mold

How to spell mold

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce mold

What does mold mean?

1. nounA hollow container into which a liquid or soft material is poured so it sets into a fixed shape.
2. verbTo shape a soft material, or to influence the development of something or someone.
3. nounA furry growth of fungi that appears on damp food or surfaces.

Mold in a sentence

• noun

  The chef poured the melted chocolate into a silicone mold.

• verb

  A good teacher can mold the habits of an entire class.

• noun

  Green mold had spread across the bread left in the cupboard.

• noun

  Each plastic part is produced from a steel mold at the factory.

• verb

  Workers mold the heated glass before it cools and hardens.

• noun

  The damp bathroom wall was speckled with black mold.

Where does mold come from?

Language of origin: French

The shaping sense of this word travelled into English from Old French modle, which came from the Latin modulus, a diminutive of modus meaning 'measure' or 'manner'. A modulus was literally 'a small measure', the pattern or gauge used to keep something to the right size, so the leap to a hollow form that fixes the shape of a casting was a natural one. English adopted it in the 1200s and 1300s, and from the noun came the everyday verb meaning 'to shape'. Confusingly, the same spelling also covers the furry fungus and, in older use, loose earth, but those two senses descend from quite separate Germanic roots (the fungus possibly from an Old Norse word for the growth on damp things, and the soil sense from Old English molde 'earth'). The American spelling 'mold' simply dropped the British 'u', so writers who read both dialects often hesitate between mold and mould.

How the word is built

• mold (from Latin modulus: a small measure or pattern); a single root word with no separable prefix or suffix in modern English

British and American spelling

Mold is the American spelling. British English spells it mould.