mole
[ˈmɔʊɫ]
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.67 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
An internal spy; a person who involves themself with an enemy organisation, especially an intelligence or governmental organisation, to determine and betray its secrets from within.
noun
A kind of self-propelled excavator used to form underground drains, or to clear underground pipelines.
Example Sentences
- "[Alexander the Great] then conceived the stupendous idea of constructing a mole, which should at once connect [Tyre] with the main land; and this was actually accomplished by driving piles and pouring in incalculable quantities of soil and fragments of rock; and it is generally believed, partly on the authority of ancient authors, that the whole ruins of Old Tyre were absorbed in this vast enterprize, and buried in the depths of the sea [...]"
- "Its extreme downtown is the battery, where that noble mole is washed by waves, and cooled by breezes, which a few hours previous were out of sight of land."
- "Using the countless tons of rock from the cliff-face, supplemented by much more from inland, they threw out a huge breakwater, 2,000 ft. long and 80 ft. high, roughly at right angles to the quay, so forming an almost completely sheltered corner. Fifty years later, this massive mole is still standing up to the worst that the Irish Sea can do."
- "[about Saint-Tropez] Yachts and fishing boats fill the little square of water, which is surrounded on two sides by quays, on the third by a small ship-repairing yard and on the fourth by the mole where the fishing boats moor and the nets are spread out to dry."
Etymology
From Middle English mole, mool, from Old English māl (“a mole, spot, mark, blemish”), from Proto-West Germanic *mail, from Proto-Germanic *mailą (“spot, wrinkle”), from Proto-Indo-European *mel-, *melw- (“dark, dirty”), from Proto-Indo-European *mey-, *my- (“to soil, sully”). Cognate with Scots mail (“spot, stain”), Saterland Frisian Moal (“scar”), German dialectal Meil (“spot, stain, blemish”), Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌹𐌻 (mail, “spot, blemish”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /mol/
- British English: /məʊl/
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
beauty mark
blind as a mole
Brewer's mole
common mole
duck mole
eastern mole
golden mole
hairy-tailed mole