See motte and bailey on Wiktionary
Download JSON data for motte and bailey meaning in All languages combined (3.9kB)
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"ref": "1939, H. Lawlor, “Mote, Moat, or Motte?”, in Ulster Journal of Archaeology, 2, 208-210, p. 210",
"text": "Should an inquiring stranger ask an Irish countryman if there were any \"mottes\" in the neighbourhood he might be met with unexpected but none the less unrestrained laughter, as in semi-slang the word has another meaning very far from that of a castle mound!",
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"ref": "2011, George R. R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons, page 231",
"text": "Deepwood is a motte-and-bailey castle in the midst of thick forest, easy to creep up on unawares. A wooden castle, defended by an earthen dike and a palisade of logs.",
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"The predecessor of the castle, having a raised earth mound (the motte) topped with a tower (or donjon), and a wooden ring fortification surrounding a courtyard (the bailey)."
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"A form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two similar positions, one modest and easier to defend (the \"motte\") and one much more controversial (the \"bailey\"), by advancing the controversial position, but when challenged, insisting that they are only advancing the more modest position."
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.
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