molt
UK[məʊlt]US[moʊlt]
v
(of an animal, especially a bird or insect) to lose feathers, skin, or hair to make way for new growth
n
the process of molting
Etymology
The verb 'molt' entered English in the 15th century from Middle English 'mouten', which was borrowed from Old French 'muter' or 'moulter', meaning 'to change'. This Old French term finds its source in the Latin verb 'mutare', meaning 'to change'. The semantic journey is direct: the process of shedding an outer layer is fundamentally a physical change. The modern spelling with 'l', first recorded in the 16th century, was influenced by the earlier, now obsolete, English word 'moult', which came from Latin 'mutare' via a different Germanic route. Thus, the core logic of the word, from its Latin root to its current biological meaning, is centered on the concept of transformation.
Analysis
The word is a simplex form derived from Latin. It is not productively segmentable into meaningful substrings in modern English spelling.
Examples
The snake will molt its skin as it grows larger.
The bird's feathers looked ragged during its annual molt.
Crabs molt by backing out of their old hard shells.