molt

[mohlt]

verb (used without object)

(of birds, insects, reptiles, etc.) to cast or shed the feathers, skin, or the like, that will be replaced by a new growth.

verb (used with object)

to cast or shed (feathers, skin, etc.) in the process of renewal.

noun

an act, process, or an instance of molting.

something that is dropped in molting.

Also especially British, moult.

Origin of molt

1300–50; earlier mout (with intrusive -l-; cf. fault, assault), Middle English mouten, Old English -mūtian to change (in bi-mūtian to exchange for) < Latin mūtāre to change; see mutate

Related formsmolt·er, noun

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for molting

exuviate, decorticate, peel, slough, doff

Examples from the Web for molting

Contemporary Examples of molting

BORN THIS WEEK Natalie Portman (June 9, 1981) The molting one herself is a Gemini ruled by winged Mercury.
Horoscopes for June 5-11, 2011
Starsky + Cox
June 4, 2011

Historical Examples of molting

Exuviation: the act of molting: the cast-off skin or exuvium.
Explanation of Terms Used in Entomology
John. B. Smith
By far the greater number of birds are caught during the molting season.
The Central Eskimo
Franz Boas
Get the eggs; watch the hatching, the molting, the transformations.
Cornell Nature-Study Leaflets
Various
The molting is an interesting process, and can be readily observed.
Elementary Zoology, Second Edition
Vernon L. Kellogg
In the last years of Elizabeth, Puritanism was molting, not dying.
The Beginners of a Nation
Edward Eggleston.

British Dictionary definitions for molting

molt

verb, noun

the usual US spelling of moult

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for molting

molt

also moult, mid-14c., mouten, of feathers, "to be shed," from Old English *mutian "to change" (cf. bemutian "to exchange"), from Latin mutare "to change" (see mutable). Transitive sense, of birds, "to shed feathers" is first attested 1520s. With parasitic -l-, late 16c., on model of fault, etc. Related: Molted, moulted; molting, moulting. As a noun from 1815.