Molding

How to spell molding

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce molding

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does molding mean?

1. nounA shaped strip of wood, plaster, or other material used as a decorative border on a wall, ceiling, or frame.
2. verbThe act of forming or pressing a soft material into a particular shape.

Molding in a sentence

• noun

  The crown molding around the ceiling needed a fresh coat of white paint.

• verb

  Molding the warm clay into a bowl took her most of the afternoon.

• noun

  A strip of oak molding ran along the base of the staircase.

• verb

  The factory uses heat for molding plastic parts into precise forms.

Where does molding come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word grows from the verb and noun 'mold', which entered English through Old French 'modle' and reaches back to the Latin 'modulus', a diminutive of 'modus' meaning 'measure' or 'manner'. The Latin sense was something used to gauge or fix a shape, and that idea of a measured form is exactly what survives in the modern noun: a strip of material run to a fixed profile. By the medieval period the English noun named the hollow form into which molten metal or soft clay was pressed, and from there the meaning broadened to the act of shaping anything by hand. The architectural sense, a decorative band of plaster or wood running along a wall or frame, is recorded from the 1400s and owes its name to the shaped profile being drawn from a template. The American and Canadian spelling drops the 'u' that British writers keep in 'moulding', which is the main reason the word trips people who move between dialects.

How the word is built

• mold (shape, from Latin modulus 'measure')
• -ing (noun/verb suffix)

British and American spelling

Molding is the American spelling. British English spells it moulding.