molt

verbB2+Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #13,523 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: molting, molts, molted

To molt is to shed old feathers so new ones can grow. Birds molt, molting season, molt in late summer.

Most birds molt gradually and keep flying, but ducks and geese lose all their flight feathers at once and are grounded for weeks — which is why they hide on water. Molting takes enormous energy, which is why it follows breeding. Note the British spelling moult.

Definitions of molt

1verbmoltTo shed old feathers so new ones can grow.B2+
“Our parrot is molting, so there are feathers all over the floor of its cage.”

molt is a shedding.

Also accepted in games: moult

Where it comes from

Middle English mouten comes from Latin mutare, to change. Mutate and mutual come from the same changing.

Old English
multe, multon and multen
Middle English
molte
English, today
molt

Built from

melten · Middle English — to melt
meltan · Old English — to melt, to digest, to be fully destroyed

From Middle English molte, the 2sg and subj. sg. past tense of melten (“to melt”), and also from a reduced form of molten (the general plural past tense, used with we and they), from Old English multe, multon and multen, respectively the 2sg / subj. sg., plural indicative, and plural subjunctive forms of meltan (“to melt, to digest, to be fully destroyed”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in Birds

Practise this word

molt in the wild

The Mergini take on the eclipse plumage during the late summer and molt into their breeding plumage during the winter.
Mergini
Soft-shell crab is a culinary term for crabs that have recently molted their old exoskeleton and are still soft.
Soft-shell crab
Soft-shells are removed from the water as soon as they molt or, preferably, just before to prevent any hardening of their shell.
Soft-shell crab
Forced molting is usually implemented when egg-production is naturally decreasing toward the end of the first egg-laying phase.
Forced molting
After the molt, the hen's egg production rate usually peaks slightly lower than the previous peak, but egg quality is improved.
Forced molting

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Related words

the meltan family

melt

molt — used about once every 23,598 pages · #13,523 · point at the bar for the others

molten

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