Other forms: mooted, moots, mooting
Moot means open to argument, and perhaps not worth settling. A moot point, the question is moot, that is moot now.
British and American usage split here: a moot point in Britain is one still arguable, and in America it usually means one no longer worth arguing because events have settled it. Both come from the law school moot, a practice case argued for training. Note that moot was an Old English word for an assembly, which survives in place names and in the Witenagemot, the Anglo-Saxon council.
1adjectivemootOpen to argument, and perhaps not worth settling.
“Whether we should have gone by train is a moot point now; we're already here.”
2verbraiseTo raise a question for discussion.
“The idea of closing the old library was first mooted at a council meeting last spring.”
moot is a quality of being arguable.
Old English gemot meant a meeting or assembly. A moot court was a mock case argued at an assembly for practice, and the modern sense of arguable comes from there.
Proto-Indo-European
*meh₂d- — to encounter, come
Proto-Germanic
*mōtą
Old English
*mōt
Middle English
mōt
English, today
moot
Built from
From Middle English mōt, ȝemōt, from Old English mōt, ġemōt (“meeting”), from Proto-Germanic mōtą, from Proto-Indo-European meh₂d- (“to encounter, come”). Cognate with Scots mut, mote (“meeting, assembly”), Low German Mööt (“meeting”), Moot (“meeting”), archaic Dutch moet (“meeting”), Danish møde (“meeting”), Swedish möte (“meeting”), Norwegian møte (“meeting”), Icelandic mót (“meeting, tournament, meet”). Related to meet. The adjective derives from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire