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\ ˈmōlt 
\
\molted; molting; molts
Definition of molt
(Entry 1 of 2)
: to shed hair, feathers, shell, horns, or an outer layer periodically
Birds molt once or twice a year.
: to cast off (an outer covering) periodically specifically : to throw off (the old cuticle (see cuticle sense 1)) —used of arthropods a spider, like a lobster, molts its covering as it grows — Eugene Kinkead
molt
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Examples of molt in a Sentence
Verb
Snakes molt as they grow, shedding the old skin and growing a larger new skin.
a crab molts its shell as it grows larger
Recent Examples on the Web: Verb Penguins molt once a year, shedding their coats and replacing them with new feathers.
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Ananya Panchal, SFChronicle.com, "California Academy of Sciences has San Francisco’s most beautiful yoga class," 4 June 2020 Horseshoe crabs molt their distinctive shells about 17 times before reaching maturity at age 10.
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National Geographic, "Atlantic horseshoe crab," 20 Apr. 2020 Due to a bad remote connection, Dr. David Katz, an infectious disease specialist, began molting in Technicolor.
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Bill Keveney, USA TODAY, "Bookshelves and AirPods: How Anderson Cooper, Savannah Guthrie and other news stars adjust," 31 Mar. 2020 But in the cold Antarctic seas, the whales are apparently unable to molt.
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Virginia Morell, Science | AAAS, "Scientists say they’ve cracked the mystery of why whales migrate—and it’s all about healthy skin," 21 Feb. 2020 People with allergies are most at risk when bird cages or lofts are cleaned out, and during the time of year when birds molt and shed their feathers.
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Sandee Lamotte, CNN, "The man whose duvet nearly killed him: How this medical mystery was solved," 18 Nov. 2019 Those larvae grow and molt in the fly's tissues before reaching an infective stage.
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Beth Mole, Ars Technica, "Cattle eyeball worms found in second human, raising worry of wriggly uprising," 6 Nov. 2019 Through many hours of observations during and after this training, McMahan’s team now has a roughly 85 percent success rate in predicting molting in males.
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Laura Poppick, Scientific American, "Harm to Table: Turning an Invasive Crab into a Delicacy," 30 Oct. 2019 Soon after the chicks fledge, parents will begin molting.
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Elissa Nuñez, National Geographic, "Penguins," 16 Aug. 2019 Recent Examples on the Web: Noun The new study suggests that not only killer whales, but all whales migrate to molt, the researchers report in Marine Mammal Science.
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Virginia Morell, Science | AAAS, "Scientists say they’ve cracked the mystery of why whales migrate—and it’s all about healthy skin," 21 Feb. 2020 Females, however, molt into wingless nymph-like adults.
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oregonlive, "Can I harvest neglected garlic bulbs now? Ask an expert," 22 Feb. 2020 The seals will swim under sea ice through the Antarctic winter, collecting data until their sensors fall off during their next molt.
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Stephen Witt, WIRED, "Fitted With Sensors, Antarctic Seals Track Water Temperatures," 25 June 2019 Soon, white reindeer will turn buff with spring, the molt beginning with a dark ring around the eye.
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Juliana Hanle, Scientific American, "The Fight for the Reindeer," 18 Nov. 2019 Red knots, which migrate annually from the Arctic to the Southern Hemisphere and back, will travel 1,500 miles at a clip and then pause to rest, feed, and molt at these places, faithfully returning to the same ones each year.
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Liz Langley, National Geographic, "Fascinating ways animals prepare for fall," 27 Sep. 2019 Officials determined the seals were having an abnormal molt, but were unable to identify a definitive cause for the abnormality.
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Anchorage Daily News, "NOAA sees dramatic increase of ice seal deaths in Bering and Chukchi seas," 13 Sep. 2019 Unlike some birds that shed a few feathers at a time, penguins lose all their feathers at once during a process called catastrophic molt.
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Elissa Nuñez, National Geographic, "Penguins," 16 Aug. 2019 After the spring, their male gonads age and drop off in a single molt and an ovary develops.
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Emily Toomey, Smithsonian, "Newborn Shrimp Often Undergo Sex Reversal, but Ocean Acidification Could Disturb That Natural Process," 28 June 2019
See MoreThese example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'molt.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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More Definitions for molt
molt
verbEnglish Language Learners Definition of molt
biology : to lose a covering of hair, feathers, etc., and replace it with new growth in the same place
See the full definition for molt in the English Language Learners Dictionary
molt
verb\ ˈmōlt \
\molted; molting
Kids Definition of molt
: to shed outer material (as hair, shell, or horns) that will be replaced by a new growth
molt
intransitive verb\ ˈmōlt \
\variants:
or chiefly British moult
Medical Definition of molt
(Entry 1 of 2)
: to shed hair, feathers, shell, horns, or an outer layer periodically
: to cast off (an outer covering) periodically specifically : to throw off (the old cuticle) —used of arthropods
molt
nounvariants:
or chiefly British moult
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The first known use of molt was in the 15th century
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