• (RP) IPA: /mɒθ/
• (America) enPR: môth, IPA: /mɔθ/
• (cot-caught, Canada) IPA: /mɑθ/, enPR: mŏth

moth (plural moths)

1. A usually nocturnal insect of the order Lepidoptera, distinguished from butterflies by feather-like antennae.
2. (figurative) Anything that gradually and silently eats, consumes, or wastes any other thing.

• lep

• French: mite, papillon de nuit, phalène
• German: Motte, Nachtfalter
• Italian: falena, tarma, camola, tignola
• Portuguese: mariposa
• Russian: моль
• Spanish: polilla

moth (moths, present participle mothing; past and past participle mothed)

1. (intransitive) To hunt for moths.

• (RP) IPA: /məʊt/
• (America) enPR: mōt, IPA: /moʊt/

moth

1. The plant Vigna aconitifolia, moth bean.

• (Vigna aconitifolia) Turkish gram, mat bean, matki

• German: Mattenbohne

moth (plural moths)

1. Obsolete form of mote#English|mote.
   • c. 1603–1604, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Othello, the Moore of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: Printed by Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, OCLC 606515358 ↗, [Act 1, scene 3]:

     So that, dear lords, if I be left behind, / A moth of peace, and he go to the war, / The rites for which I love him are bereft me, / And I a heavy interim shall support / By his dear absence. Let me go with him.

2. (dated) A liver spot, especially an irregular or feathery one.
   • 1895, Good Housekeeping, page 196, ISSN: 0731-3462

     To remove moth patches, wash the spots with a solution of common bicarbonate of soda and water several times a day, until the patches are removed, which will usually be in forty-eight hours.

   • 1999, R. L. Gupta, Directory of Diseases & Cures: In Homoeopathy, page 254, ISBN 8170215161.

     Craves for sour things, chalks and eggs, fatty people with light brown spots on the face or liver spots, moth patches on forehead and cheek.

   • 2005, J. D. Patil, Textbook of Applied Materia Medica, page 108, ISBN 8180565904.

     There are signs of liver affections as weakness, yellow complexion, liver spots, and moth spot like a saddle over the nose.