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Moult   Listen
verb
Moult, Molt  v. t.  To cast, as the hair, skin, feathers, or the like; to shed.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Moult" Quotes from Famous Books



... poures, si nel poi baillier mie. Il me lessrent por mes enfanz qu'il virent. —Di moi, vilain, des estres de la vile. Et cil respont:—Ce vos sai-ge bien dire Por un denier .ii. granz pains i vismes; La denere vaut .iii. en autre vile: Moult par est bone, se puis n'est empirie. —Fox, dist Guillaume, ce ne demant-je mie, Ms des paiens chevaliers de la vile, Del rei Otrant ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker

... "Why, I'd moult at once. Look at the rum little beggar. Arn't he comic? Why, he arn't got no wings and no tail. Hi! Cocky, how did you get your beak bent that way? Look as if you'd had it caught in a gate. ...
— The Adventures of Don Lavington - Nolens Volens • George Manville Fenn

... Sir John riding the wilderness with his murdering crew! May the Lord protect and aid all women from such birds o' passage and of prey! And I thought I had seen the pin-feathers of some such plumage on this man Boyd. But he may moult to a prettier colour. I hope so—but in my heart I dare not believe it. For he is of that tribe of men who would have their will of every pretty petticoat they notice. Some are less unscrupulous ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... a eux no' yherbergeasmes tut cel noet le samady le iour de seint Johan[142] bien ap's houre de noune a la Tyde nous en noun de Dieu et en espoire de n're droite querele entrames en dit port s' nos ditz enemys qi avoyent assemble lours niefs en moult fort array et lesqu'x fesoient ml't noble defens tut cel iour et la noet ap's, mes dieu p' sa puissaunce et miracle no' ottroia la victorie de mesmes no[z/] enemys de qai no' m'cioms si devoutement come no' poems. Et si vo' ...
— A Chronicle of London from 1089 to 1483 • Anonymous

... the loon (Colymbus glacialis) came, as usual, to moult and bathe in the pond, making the woods ring with his wild laughter before I had risen. At rumor of his arrival all the Mill-dam sportsmen are on the alert, in gigs and on foot, two by two and three by three, with patent rifles and conical balls and spy-glasses. ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau

... chemin que le Roy fit, il vint deuers sa Dame de mere, la Princesse, qui estoit en un chastel de la Riolle (que l'on dit la Garderobbe la Reyne) et la s'estoit tenue deux jours et deux nuits, moult ebahie; et avoit bien raison. Quand elle vit le Roy son fils, elle fut toute rejouye, et luy dit, 'Ha ha beau fils, comment j'ay eu aujourd'huy grand peine et angoisse pour vous.' Dont respondit le Roy, et dit, 'Certes, Madame, je ...
— Notes & Queries 1849.12.22 • Various

... word seems originally to have meant to moult, or shed the feathers; and as a noun, "the place, whether it be abroad or in the house, in which the hawk is put during the time she casts, or doth change her feathers" (R. Holmes's Academy of Armory, ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott

... eclipse again in the summer of 1910. Thus in drakes the effect of castration is that the secondary sexual character remains permanently instead of being lost and renewed annually. Goodale, however, does not describe the moults in detail. In the natural condition the drake must moult twice in the year, once when he sheds the nuptial plumage, and again when he drops the summer dress. Goodale insists, from some idea about secondary sexual characters which is not very obvious, that the eclipse or ...
— Hormones and Heredity • J. T. Cunningham

... in at a procession, or a high-mass, hear the music, enjoy a strange attire, and hate the foul monkhood. Last week, was the feast of the Immaculate Conception. On the eve we went to the Franciscans' church to hear the academical exercises. There were moult and moult clergy, about two dozen dames, that treated one another with illustrissima and brown kisses, the vice-legate, the gonfalonier, and some senate. The vice-legate, whose conception was not quite so immaculate, is a young personable person, of about twenty, and ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... enjoyment of the English temperament, and, on one occasion, piquantly quotes the remark of Froissart on our Saxon progenitors: "They took their pleasures sadly, as was their fashion; ils se divertirent moult tristement a ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... bleached before they depart, and yet they return glossy again in the spring. Now, if they pursue the sun into lower latitudes, as some suppose, in order to enjoy a perpetual summer, why do they not return bleached? Do they not rather perhaps retire to rest for a season, and at that juncture moult and change their feathers, since all other birds are known to moult soon after the season ...
— The Natural History of Selborne, Vol. 2 • Gilbert White

... Fellows found To raise their spleen against the Regent's spinney? Were charitable boxes handed round, And would not Guinea Pigs subscribe their guinea? Perchance the Demoiselle refused to moult The feathers in her head—at least till Monday; Or did the Elephant, unseemly, bolt A tract presented to be read on Sunday— But what is your opinion, ...
— The Poetical Works of Thomas Hood • Thomas Hood

... "Cil hom qui comenca l'ordre des Freres Mineurs, si ot nom frere Francois ... vint en l'ost de Damiate, e i fist moult de bien, et demora tant que la ville fut prise. Il vit le mal et le peche qui comenca a croistre entre les gens de l'ost, si li desplot, par quoi il s'en parti, e fu une piece en Surie, et puis s'en rala en son pais." Historiens des Croisades, ii. L'Est de Eracles ...
— Life of St. Francis of Assisi • Paul Sabatier

... come, proud one, when thou shalt die! "Die! Death I cast from me as these loose plumes That moult out from my pinions—let them go To Earth, and Death go with them, both I leave To mortals. What have I to do with Time? Let him pat forth his speed—these wings of mine Shall match him stroke for stroke, until we reach ...
— Poems • Walter R. Cassels

... Peacock. "If they want any of my feathers, they can wait until I moult. Then you will see how much they think of me, for whenever they find one of my train feathers (not tail, if you please; every bird has a tail, but I have a train) they carry it carefully into the house to be made into a duster for the parlor. I never give away any but my cast-off plumage. I am ...
— Among the Farmyard People • Clara Dillingham Pierson

... Yankee Eagle well might squeal and squawk At having licked the British bird (Lord) HAWKE. But when that HAWKE his brood had "pulled together," That Eagle found it yet might "moult a feather." Go it, ye friendly-fighting fowls! But know 'Tis only "Roosters" who o'er ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 24, 1891 • Various

... is written in the French tongue," said Alleyne, "and in a right clerkly hand. This is how it runs: 'A le moult puissant et moult honorable chevalier, Sir Nigel Loring de Christchurch, de son tres fidele ami Sir Claude Latour, capitaine de la Compagnie blanche, chatelain de Biscar, grand seigneur de Montchateau, vavaseur de le renomme Gaston, Comte de ...
— The White Company • Arthur Conan Doyle

... drawing, by Mr. C. S. Bate, of the larva of a Chthamalus (Balanus punctatus of British authors), after having kept alive and moulted once, these organs are distinctly shown as articulated antennae (without a case), directed forwards: hence, before the first moult in Scalpellum, we have two pair of antennae in process of formation. Anteriorly to the bases of these smaller antennae is seated the heart-shaped eye, (as I believe it to be,) .001 in diameter, with apparently ...
— A Monograph on the Sub-class Cirripedia (Volume 1 of 2) - The Lepadidae; or, Pedunculated Cirripedes • Charles Darwin

... not uncommon. I have one Guernsey specimen of a uniform fawn colour, and another rather curiously marked with grey, the tail-feathers being striped across grey and black. This is a young bird recently out of the nest, and I have no doubt would, after a moult or two, have come to its proper plumage, probably after the first moult, as seems to me frequently the case with varieties of this sort, though I have known a Blackbird show a good deal af white year after year in the winter, resuming its proper ...
— Birds of Guernsey (1879) • Cecil Smith

... attacks they are exposed at this period of their existence. Their colours and markings have become marvellously adapted to conceal them among the foliage of the plant they live upon, and this colour often changes completely after the last moult, when the creature has to descend to the ground for its change to the pupa state, during which period a brown instead of a green colour is protective. Others have acquired curious attitudes and large ocelli, which cause them to resemble the head of some reptile, or ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... See, how he scorns all human arguments, So that no oar he wants, nor other sail Than his own wings, between so distant shores! See, how he holds them, pointed straight to heaven, Fanning the air with the eternal pinions, That do not moult themselves like mortal hair!" And then, as nearer and more near us came The Bird of Heaven, more glorious he appeared, So that the eye could not sustain his presence, But down I cast it; and he came to shore With a small vessel, gliding swift and light, So that the water ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

... well cared for and will live to a great age. Some of these birds have been known to attain an age of seventy years, and one seen by Vaillant had reached the patriarchal age of ninety three. At sixty its memory began to fail, at sixty-five the moult became very irregular and the tail changed to yellow. At ninety it was a very decrepit creature, almost blind and quite silent, having forgotten its former abundant stock ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph, Volume 1, Number 2, February, 1897 • anonymous

... it was their great love of bodily exercise, their very revels of literature that had protected them against the numbing influence of their ordinary surroundings. They never entered a cafe, they had a horror of the streets, even pretending to moult in them like caged eagles, whereas their schoolfellows were already rubbing their elbows over the small marble tables and playing at cards for drinks. Provincial life, which dragged other lads, when still young, within its cogged mechanism, that habit of going to one's club, of spelling out the ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... will tell you why; so shall my anticipation preuent your discouery of your secricie to [Sidenote: discovery, and your secrecie to the King and Queene moult no feather,[10]] the King and Queene[9] moult no feather, I haue [Sidenote: 116] of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all custome of exercise; and indeed, [Sidenote: exercises;] it goes so heauenly with my disposition; ...
— The Tragedie of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark - A Study with the Text of the Folio of 1623 • George MacDonald

... the latter six; during the third period the former laid six and the latter not any. From this time on no eggs were received from either group. The decline in egg production was probably due in large part to the fact that the hens began to moult during the second period, and continued to do so during the rest of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various



Words linked to "Moult" :   shed, slough, drop, molt, peel off, cast, sloughing, throw, moulting



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