MOAT. 71 



applied to certain brooks at their junction with the Nashua River. As 

 Dr. Green's query concerning the origin and currency of moat ap- 

 pears to have elicited no response, I submit what follows : 



Manifestly " moat " meaning hill or embankment is inapplicable to 

 the thing called moat in the folk-speech of Groton. The thing de- 

 scribed is a confluence, what the men of old time termed " a waters' 

 meet." Moat signifying a trench filled with water is a technical term 

 used in connection with works of fortification, and does not fit the 

 facts given so well as " mote," a meeting or meet. 



Stormonth's English Dictionary has : " Mote n. mot ; also gemote, 

 in Anglo-Saxon times, a meeting, as in the Witenagemot, the assem- 

 bly of wisemen." Ward-mote and folk-mote are instanced. It may 

 be added that, in the City of London, the meeting of the freemen at 

 which Councilmen are elected is called " ward-mote " to this day. 

 The Century Dictionary and Skeat (Etymological Dictionary) both treat 

 mote as an obsolete form of moot, meaning meeting or assembly. 



Numerous archaic compound words in which mote or mot signify- 

 ing " meeting " occurs might be given ; a few must suffice. Gomme, 

 in " Primitive Folk-Moots," speaks of a Motestowhill near Stoneleigh, 

 where the socmen held meetings. Worsaae, in his " Danes and Nor- 

 wegians in England, Scotland, and Wales," says : " A document of 

 the year 1258 conveys a gift of some ground in the suburbs of Dublin 

 in Thingmotha (from mote, a meeting). The Thing place was near 

 the present site of Dublin Castle, the name of the surrounding parish 

 was 'St. Andrew de Thengmote.' " Stubbs, in his "Constitutional 

 History of England," vol. I., p. 431, notes the existence of titnsci- 

 pesmot, township-meeting, shire-moot, hundred moot, and portman- 

 mot, court of portreeve in boroughs. Vinogradoff, in " Villainage in 

 England," cites sockemanemot and frankhalimote. Although Stor- 

 month, Skeat, and the Century Dictionary all cite various kindred 

 forms of mote in Anglo-Saxon or the Scandinavian tongues, none of 

 them notices the use of mote or its Norse equivalents in the sense of 

 junction or confluence. But Cleasby's "Icelandic-English Diction- 

 ary " has the following : 



Mot (Anglo-Saxon gemot; Old English mote or moot inward-mote; 

 Danish mode, Swedish mot and mote) a meeting. 



2. As a Norse law term : in Norway a mot was a town meeting and is 

 opposed to thing, a county meeting. 



3. A joint, juncture; ar-nwt a meeting of waters, also a local name. 

 [Compare Latin Confluentia, Coblentz.] 



