Hoot vs Moot - What's the difference?
hoot | moot |
A derisive cry or shout.
The cry of an owl.
(US, slang) A fun event or person. (See hootenanny)
A small particle
* 1878 , John Hanson Beadle, Western Wilds, and the Men who Redeem Them , page 611, Jones Brothers, 1878
To cry out or shout in contempt.
* Dryden
To make the cry of an owl.
* Shakespeare
To assail with contemptuous cries or shouts; to follow with derisive shouts.
* Jonathan Swift
Subject to discussion (originally at a ); arguable, debatable, unsolved or impossible to solve.
* 1770 , (Joseph Banks), The (published 1962):
* 1851 , (Herman Melville), :
* 2002 , , The Great Nation , Penguin 2003, p. 477:
(North America, chiefly, legal) Being an exercise of thought; academic.
(North America) Having no practical impact or relevance.
* 2007 , Paul Mankowski, "
A moot court.
* Sir T. Elyot
A system of arbitration in many areas of Africa in which the primary goal is to settle a dispute and reintegrate adversaries into society rather than assess penalties.
(Scouting) A gathering of Rovers (18–26 year-old Scouts), usually in the form of a camp lasting 2 weeks.
(paganism) A social gathering of pagans, normally held in a public house.
(historical) An assembly (usually for decision making in a locality).
(shipbuilding) A ring for gauging wooden pins.
To bring up as a subject for debate, to propose.
To discuss or debate.
* Sir W. Hamilton
* Sir T. Elyot
(US) To make or declare irrelevant.
To argue or plead in a supposed case.
* Ben Jonson
As nouns the difference between hoot and moot
is that hoot is a derisive cry or shout while moot is size, measure.As a verb hoot
is to cry out or shout in contempt.hoot
English
Noun
(en noun)- Well, it was Sunday morning, and the wheat nothing like ripe; but it was a chance, and I got onto my reaper and banged down every hoot of it before Monday night.
Usage notes
* (small particle) The term is nearly always encountered in a negative sense in such phrases as don't care a hoot'' or ''don't give two hoots . * (derisive cry) The phrase a hoot and a holler'' has a very different meaning to ''hoot and holler''. The former is a short distance, the latter is a verb of ''derisive cry .Verb
(en verb)- Matrons and girls shall hoot at thee no more.
- the clamorous owl that nightly hoots
- Partridge and his clan may hoot me for a cheat.
See also
* hooter * hootenannyAnagrams
* ----moot
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) moot, mot, . Related to (l).Adjective
(en adjective)- [T]he uncertain, unsettled condition of this science of Cetology is in the very vestibule attested by the fact, that in some quarters it still remains a moot point whether a whale be a fish.
- The extent to which these Parisian radicals ‘represented’ the French people as a whole was very moot .
- Walter Crane and Lewis F. Day (1903) Moot Points : Friendly Disputes on Art and Industry Between Walter Crane and Lewis F. Day
- That point may make for a good discussion, but it is moot .
The Languages of Biblical Translation", Adoremus Bulletin , Vol. 13, No. 4,
- The question [whether certain poetry was present in the original Hebrew Psalms] in our own time is moot , since various considerations have made it certain that, of all the hazards presented by biblical translation, a dangerous excess of beauty is not one of them.
Synonyms
* (without relevance) irrelevant, obsolete (if it was previously relevant)Derived terms
* moot point * moot courtNoun
(en noun)- The pleading used in courts and chancery called moots .
Derived terms
* folkmoot * gemootVerb
(en verb)- a problem which hardly has been mentioned, much less mooted , in this country
- First a case is appointed to be mooted by certain young men, containing some doubtful controversy.
- There is a difference between mooting and pleading; between fencing and fighting.