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mot

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mot¹

  • /məʊ/ UK

Rhymes with -əʊ

Where it comes from

From French mot. Doublet of motto.

noun mots

  1. A witty remark; a witticism; a bon mot. Here and there turns up a […] savage mot.
  2. obsolete A word or a motto; a device. 1597–1598, Joseph Hall, Virgidemiarum With his big title, an Italian mot
  3. obsolete A note or brief strain on a bugle. Comrades, mark these three mots — it is the call of the Knight of the Fetterlock

mot²

  • /mɒt/ UK

Rhymes with -ɒt

Where it comes from

Probably from Dutch mot (“a sow, a lecherous woman”). See also mort (“woman”) and moth (“girlfriend”).

noun mots

  1. Ireland, UK, slang A woman; a wife. Come wed, my dear, and let's agree, / Then of the booze-ken you'll be free; / No sneer from cully, mot, or froe / Dare then reproach my Bess for Joe; / For he's the kiddy rum and queer, / That all St. Giles's boys do fear.
  2. Ireland, UK, slang A prostitute.
  3. Ireland, UK, slang A landlady. After some altercation with the "mot" of the "ken" (mistress of the lodging-house) about the cleanliness of a knife or fork, my new acquaintance began to arrange "ground," &c., for the night's work.

mot³

Where it comes from

Alternative forms.

noun mots

  1. alternative Alternative form of mott We drew up in a body, with a small mot of timber close by to which we could easily retreat.

Mot⁴

Where it comes from

Learned borrowing from Ugaritic 𐎎𐎚 (mōtu).

proper noun

  1. The ancient Canaanite god of death and the underworld.

MOT⁵

  • /ɛm.əʊ.tiː/ UK

Where it comes from

(roadworthiness test, aggregate grades): See Proper noun.

proper noun

  1. UK, abbreviation, historical, initialism Initialism of Ministry of Transport (a former name of the Department for Transport) still in use relating to the MOT test it made compulsory in 1961, and three grades of aggregate it specified for road, path and sports court subbase layers.

noun MOTs

  1. UK, colloquial, countable An MOT test (an annual test of roadworthiness for most UK motor vehicles over three years old, or four years old in Northern Ireland). I can’t drive over this week, the car is in for its MOT.

    Similar: vehicle inspection

  2. UK, broadly, countable Any regular checkup. Mr. Baines: We have also said in our response that we believe that an 'MOT' for houses would be a good idea. How and when you apply this— Q120 Mr Olner: Wait a minute! I have got a motorcar and I have to have an MOT after three years, so if you are going to talk about an MOT for housing stock, what
  3. UK, countable, uncountable An aggregate which meets one of the three Ministry of Transport standards for use in road, path and sports court subbase layers. MOT Type 1 gives the strongest base, MOT Type 3 the best drainage, and MOT Type 2 is intermediate for both
  4. abbreviation, initialism, uncountable Initialism of management of technology
  5. abbreviation, countable, initialism Initialism of microwave oven transformer
  6. abbreviation, countable, initialism, uncountable Initialism of member of the tribe (“a Jew”). And, of course, she and her family would be welcome in our home too, with bagels, crembos—and even the kind of four course meal we were lucky enough to enjoy with them, our fellow MoTs.
  7. abbreviation, countable, initialism Initialism of magnetooptical trap

verb MOTs · MOTing · MOTed

  1. UK, colloquial To subject a motor vehicle to an MOT test. I've got to get the car MOTed by Friday.

Thesaurus

Closest in meaning: witticism, quip, potency, words, towards, term, zinger, note, word, dot, ext, sci, dnd, gra, mdt, tdm

Translations

Every language

noun management of technology

日本語技術経営 gijyutsu-keiei

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MLA

"mot." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/mot. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026.

APA

mot. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/mot

Chicago

"mot." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/mot.

BibTeX
@misc{mot_2026,
  title = {mot},
  howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://micwyn.com/word/mot},
  urldate = {2026-11-06}
}