Pronunciations (5)
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/moʊlt/
Pronunciation notes
- General-American
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/mɒlt/
Pronunciation notes
- UK
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/məʊlt/
Pronunciation notes
- Received-Pronunciation
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moʊlt
Pronunciation notes
- US
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mɒlt
Pronunciation notes
- GB
Noun
The process of shedding or losing a covering of fur, feathers or skin etc.
- Examples
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Some birds change colour during their winter moult.
The skin or feathers cast off during the process of moulting.
- Synonyms
Verb
To undergo the process of shedding or losing a covering of hair or fur, feathers, skin, horns, etc, and replacing it with a fresh one; to change by moulting.
Usage- Intransitive
- Synonyms
- Examples
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Birds moult periodically.
[…] molted into a new suit so that he could fly.
More examples (6)
[…]; but each bird, Red or Black, male or female, has invariably moulted true to colour - a Black has never moulted into a Red.
The engorged nymphae were collected on the 2nd August, 1910, and moulted into adults on the 19th September, 1910. Later, they were placed on cattle […]
[…] One of the few Streak-headed Mannikins which I kept moulted into its second-year plumage with a pair of white feathers on its breast and a Scaly-breasted Munia grew several white primaries, as did a White-spotted Mannikin.
[…] to grow and molt into a new version of herself.
With the personnel changes at Oxford, Reading could moult into a new centre for Wittgenstein studies, which also included John Preston and Max de Gaynesford .
Tammy will get the girl a phone and some clothes, […] Some woman from a Georgia hive will build a fake ID and ship it up in a few weeks. Whoever Jess was before will shrivel away, and a new person will molt—so to speak—into its place.
To shed in such a manner.
Usage- Transitive
- Examples
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Turtle-droves […] moulted their feathers.
Noun
periodic shedding of the cuticle in arthropods or the outer skin in reptiles
Verb
cast off hair, skin, horn, or feathers
- Examples
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our dog sheds every Spring