moat
/moʊt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.12 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A deep, wide defensive ditch, normally filled with water, surrounding a fortified habitation.
noun
A characteristic of a business that enhances its resilience against competitive pressures, arising from the inherent nature of its products, services, brand, or other structural advantages.
noun
A clear ring outside the eyewall of a tropical cyclone.
name
A surname.
Example Sentences
- "No matter how good your company's product is or how quickly the industry is growing, if there is no moat, competitors will invade your castle and burn it down."
- "“I think ‘moats’ are lame,” Mr. Musk had said during a Tesla earnings call. It was a criticism of an economic principle that Mr. Buffett had coined in 1999 and that has become something of a mantra for his faithful: Invest in businesses “that have wide, sustainable moats around them.”"
- "Moreover, where older firms might have to stave off competitors and engage in practices like predatory pricing to keep the competition at bay, platform monopolies have a built-in moat. Since a platform’s value comes from its number of users—a phenomenon known as the network effect—competing against large platforms is nigh impossible since its monopoly position makes it inherently more useful."
Etymology
From Middle English mote, from Old French mote (“mound, embankment”); compared also to Old French motte (“hillock, lump, clod, turf”), from Medieval Latin mota (“a mound, hill”), of Germanic origin, perhaps via Frankish *mot, *motta (“mud, peat, bog, turf”), from Proto-Germanic *mutô, *mudraz, *muþraz (“dirt, filth, mud, swamp”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mut- (“dark, dirty”). Cognate with Alemannic German Mott, Mutte (“peat, turf”), Bavarian Mott (“peat, turf”), dialectal Dutch mot (“dust, fine sand”), Saterland Frisian mut (“grit, litter, humus”), Swedish muta (“to drizzle”), Old English mot (“speck, particle”). More at mote, mud, smut. As term for a business strategy, popularized by American investor Warren Buffett.
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /moʊt/
- British English: /məʊt/