Other forms: mottes
A motte is the earth mound an early castle keep stood on. The motte and bailey, climb the motte, the motte survives.
The Normans built hundreds of them within a generation of 1066, since a motte could be thrown up in weeks with forced labour. The mound often survives long after the timber tower on top has gone.
1nounmotteThe earth mound an early castle keep stood on.
“The Normans built a wooden tower on top of the motte, with a view over the whole town.”
motte is a mound.
French motte means a mound or clod; moat is a doublet, since the ditch and the mound came from the same digging.
Old French
motte — mound, hillock
French
motte
English, today
motte
From French motte, from Anglo-Norman -/Old French motte (“mound, hillock”). a doublet of moat.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire