motten.¹

Brit.

/mɒt/, U.S.

/mɑt/

Forms: 1800s mot, 1800s– mott, 1800s– motte, 1900s– mote.

Origin: Probably a borrowing from French. Etymon: French motte.

Etymology: Probably ultimately < French motte (see mote n.²), perhaps via Irish English: see discussion in Southern Folklore Q. (1972) 36 127–32. Connection with Spanish mata group of trees or bushes, copse (10th cent.), plant, bush (late 15th cent.) is unlikely.

U.S. regional (chiefly Texas).

A clump of trees in prairie country.

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the world > plants > by growth or development > defined by habit > tree or woody plant > wood or assemblage of trees or shrubs > [noun] > characteristic of particular habitat or period

maquis1829

motte1844

amber forest1846

caatinga1846

native bush1853

chena1877

monsoon forest1903

rainforest1903

tropical rainforest1903

padang1909

cloud forest1922

macchia1924

1844 G. W. Kendall Narr. 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.

1848 C. W. Webber Old Hicks v. 52 Our course bearing west of north, over broken prairie, diversified by clumps or motts of scrubby growth.

1857 F. L. Olmsted Journey through Texas 137 Before us [were] very beautiful prairies,..and little belts, mottes and groups of live-oak.

1880 R. H. Loughridge U.S. Census Rep. on Cotton for Texas Motts of Timber. Motts of live oak.

1909 ‘O. Henry’ Roads of Destiny ix. 150 A stone's cast away stood a little mott of coma trees; beneath it a jacal such as the Mexicans erect.

1944 Atlantic 173 i. 103/2 A dead live-oak tree..stood apart, in clear ground, not far from a motte of timber.

1990 Birder's World Aug. 10/1 The mottes reign over a landscape of pastures, mesquite thickets [etc.].

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2003; most recently modified version published online March 2022).

motten.²

Brit.

/mɒt/, U.S.

/mɑt/

Origin: A borrowing from French. Etymon: French motte.

Etymology: < Anglo-Norman and Old French motte (see mote n.²); compare earlier mote n.²G. T. Clark (1809–98) (see quot. 1884 at main sense) also used the form mote ; see quot. 1884 at mote n.² 1a and the following:1877 Montgomeryshire Coll. 10 329 The word Mota, in French Motte, in English Mote, occurs, not unfrequently, in early charters and records.

Medieval History and Archaeology.

A large artificial earthen mound with a flattened top, usually surmounted by a fort, castle, etc. Cf. mote n.² 1a.

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1884 G. 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.

1892 J. 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.

1947 T. H. White Elephant & Kangaroo (1948) xxi. 169 A Norman castle on a motte.

1967 J. B. Nellist Brit. Archit. vi. 145/1 Although the bailey might be captured, the motte as a self-contained unit could still offer resistance.

1991 Constr. Weekly Sept. (Products Suppl.) 31/2 The underpinning task..will transfer the..load of the perimeter masonry wall of the tower, through the motte and right down to the underlying chalk foundation some 18m below.

Compounds

motte-and-bailey adj. designating or relating to a kind of fortification, esp. a castle, built in Britain by the Normans, and consisting of a fort on the top of a motte surrounded by a bailey (bailey n. 2); also (unhyphenated) as n.

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society > armed hostility > defence > defensive work(s) > fort or fortified town > [noun] > other types of fort

hendecagon1648

grand1670

etoile1727

vitrified fort1777

roundabout1795

ring fort1846

oppidum1847

sea-fort1879

motte-and-bailey1900

motte castle1912

mote-castle1919

murus gallicus1939

1900 Proc. Soc. Antiquaries Scotl. 34 269 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.

1962 C. 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.

1992 Rescue News Dec. No. 57. 5/1 Rescue work was done at sites like Duneight motte and bailey and Ballywillwill rath.

motte castle n. a (Norman) castle built on a motte.

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