Moot

How to spell moot

4 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce moot

What does moot mean?

1. adjectiveOpen to argument, or having no real practical relevance because the situation has already been decided.
2. verbTo raise a subject for discussion or put it forward as a possibility.
3. nounA mock court hearing in which law students argue a hypothetical case, or historically an assembly held to discuss and settle matters.

Moot in a sentence

• adjective

  Whether to repaint the office is now a moot question, since the lease ends next month.

• verb

  Managers began to moot the idea of moving the head office to Leeds.

• noun

  The law students prepared for weeks before the national moot competition.

• adjective

  The lawyers agreed the issue was moot once the contract had already expired.

• verb

  Colleagues at the meeting will moot several options before any vote is taken.

• noun

  Villagers once gathered at a moot on the hill to settle local disputes.

Where does moot come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word descends from the Old English noun mōt, also seen as gemōt, which named a meeting or assembly of people gathered to talk things over and settle disputes. This sat in the same Germanic family as the verb mētan, the ancestor of modern 'meet', so a moot was literally an occasion where people came together. In early England a 'moot' was a real legal and governing assembly, and place names like Moot Hill still record where such gatherings were held. Because these assemblies existed to argue and decide points, the word slid into an adjective meaning 'open to debate', and law students later kept the noun alive in the 'moot court', a practice hearing of a hypothetical case. From that practice argument came the now common sense of a 'moot point', one so hypothetical or already settled that debating it has no practical use, which is why the spelling stays short and simple at just one doubled vowel.

How the word is built

• moot (from Old English mōt/gemōt: a meeting or assembly); a single native root with no affixes