| 释义 |
▪ I. motte, n.1 U.S.|mɒt|
Also mot, mott.
[ad. Amer. Sp. mata grove, plant, f. Sp. mata bush, clump.]
A clump of trees in a prairie (Funk's Stand. Dict. 1895).
1844Kendall Santa Fé Exped. I. 41 All that was necessary was to keep a bright look-out..while passing the different mots and ravines scattered along our trail. 1848C. W. Webber Old Hicks v. 52 Our course bearing west of north, over broken prairie, diversified by clumps or motts of scrubby growth. 1857Olmsted Journ. thro' Texas 137 Before us [were] very beautiful prairies,..and little belts, mottes and groups of live-oak. 1880R. H. Loughridge U.S. Census Rep. on Cotton for Texas, Motts of Timber. Motts of live oak. 1962E. B. Atwood Regional Vocab. Texas iii. 42 A small group of trees together, surrounded by open country... Mott is rather heavily concentrated in South Central and West Texas.
▪ II. motte, n.2|mɒt|
[after F. motte mound: see mote n.2]
= mote n.2 1 a, esp. in phr. motte and bailey, denoting the principal type or design of castle built in Britain by the Normans, consisting of a fort surmounting a mound (motte) at the foot of which was an enclosed bailey or court.
1884G. T. Clark Mediæval Mil. Archit. Eng. I. ii. 16 This ‘mound’, ‘motte’, or ‘burh’..was formed from the contents of a broad and deep circumscribing ditch. 1892J. H. Round Geoffrey de Mandeville 336 The motte, though its name was occasionally extended to the whole fortress, was essentially the actual keep, the crowned mound. 1900Proc. Soc. Antiquaries Scotl. XXXIV. 269 As these are the proper Norman names, and there are no others, I shall henceforth speak of this type of castle as the motte-and-bailey type. 1912E. S. Armitage Early Norman Castles Brit. Isles vi. 80 The motte-and-bailey type of castle is to be found throughout feudal Europe. 1934Proc. Soc. Antiquaries Scotl. LXVIII. 59 The Peel of Kirkintilloch had been a medieval fortress of the motte-and-bailey type. 1947T. H. White Elephant & Kangaroo (1948) xxi. 169 A Norman castle on a motte. 1962C. W. Hollister Anglo-Saxon Mil. Inst. vii. 142 The motte-and-bailey style was unknown to them, just as it was unknown to their contemporaries on the Continent. 1967J. B. Nellist Brit. Archit. vi. 145/1 Although the bailey might be captured, the motte as a self-contained unit could still offer resistance. 1971Country Life 27 May 1297/1 At Dunsany the present castle was apparently built in succession to an earlier motte and bailey castle, the mound of which exists to the north-east of the present house. Ibid. 11 Nov. 1280/4 The building stands on a raised motte; it had a moat on the south-west side.
2. Comb., as motte-castle, a (Norman) fort standing on a motte.
1912E. S. Armitage Early Norman Castles Brit. Isles vi. 83 It is rare indeed to find a motte-castle in a wild, mountainous situation in England. 1926Archæologia Cambrensis LXXXI. 223 The earthen mounds of two of the earlier ‘motte’ castles—moated mounts which once had wooden towers upon their summits.
▪ III. motte
obs. form of moat, mot, mote. |