Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Moot

Moot (mōt), v. See 1st Mot. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Moot (mo͞ot), n. (Shipbuilding) A ring for gauging wooden pins.

Moot, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Mooted; p. pr. & vb. n. Mooting.] [OE. moten, motien, AS. mōtan to meet or assemble for conversation, to discuss, dispute, fr. mōt, gemōt, a meeting, an assembly; akin to Icel. mōt, MHG. muoz. Cf. Meet to come together.] 1. To argue for and against; to debate; to discuss; to propose for discussion.

A problem which hardly has been mentioned, much less mooted, in this country. Sir W. Hamilton.

2. Specifically: To discuss by way of exercise; to argue for practice; to propound and discuss in a mock court.

First a case is appointed to be mooted by certain young men, containing some doubtful controversy. Sir T. Elyot.

Moot, v. i. To argue or plead in a supposed case.

There is a difference between mooting and pleading; between fencing and fighting. B. Jonson.

Moot, n. [AS. mōt, gemōt, a meeting; — usually in comp.] [Written also mote.] 1. A meeting for discussion and deliberation; esp., a meeting of the people of a village or district, in Anglo-Saxon times, for the discussion and settlement of matters of common interest; — usually in composition; as, folk-moot. J. R. Green.

2. [From Moot, v.] A discussion or debate; especially, a discussion of fictitious causes by way of practice.

The pleading used in courts and chancery called moots. Sir T. Elyot.

Moot case, a case or question to be mooted; a disputable case; an unsettled question. Dryden. — Moot court, a mock court, such as is held by students of law for practicing the conduct of law cases. — Moot point, a point or question to be debated; a doubtful question.

Moot, a. Subject, or open, to argument or discussion; undecided; debatable; mooted.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty. Of the others, 1,362 (a word or a single letter each) were inferred by AI from the context by the dictionary’s own rules and are marked with a wavy underline (tap or point at one to see the note); the rest, which could not be inferred with confidence, are left as “?”.