moult

Other forms of moult

plural

moults·

past tense

moulted·

present participle

moulting·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about moult

What does moult mean?

moult means "periodic shedding of the cuticle in arthropods or the outer skin in reptiles". That is the primary sense; the word has 2 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in moult?

moult has 1 syllable under the regular spelling rules, and is not divided further. It is not in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary, so that comes from how the word is written rather than from a recorded pronunciation, and no stress or phonetic transcription is claimed for it.

What is another word for moult?

Close synonyms include molt, molting, moulting, ecdysis, shed. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is moult a common word?

moult is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.