"moot point" meaning in English

See moot point in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: moot points [plural]
Etymology: moot (“assembly”) + point Etymology templates: {{af|en|moot|point|gloss1=assembly|id1=assembly}} moot (“assembly”) + point Head templates: {{en-noun}} moot point (plural moot points)
  1. An issue that is subject to, or open for, discussion or debate, to which no satisfactory answer is found; originally, one to be definitively determined by an assembly of the people. Translations (issue that is open for debate): předmět diskuse [masculine] (Czech), stridspunkt [neuter] (Danish), åbent spørgsmål [neuter] (Danish), tahtokysymys (Finnish), kiistanalainen kysymys (Finnish), päätettävä asia (Finnish), contentieux [masculine] (French), Streitpunkt [masculine] (German), offene Frage [feminine] (German), fragliche Sache [feminine] (German), αμφιλεγόμενο θέμα (amfilegómeno théma) [neuter] (Greek), kwestia do dyskusji [feminine] (Polish), kwestia dyskusyjna [feminine] (Polish), punct de discuție (Romanian), спо́рный вопро́с (spórnyj voprós) [masculine] (Russian), спі́рне пита́ння (spírne pytánnja) [masculine] (Ukrainian)
    Sense id: en-moot_point-en-noun-khdvdyIo Disambiguation of 'issue that is open for debate': 73 27
  2. An issue regarded as potentially debatable, but no longer practically applicable. Although the idea may still be worth debating and exploring academically, and such discussion may be useful for addressing similar issues in the future, the idea has been rendered irrelevant for the present issue. Related terms: non-issue Translations (issue that has been rendered irrelevant): teoretisk spørgsmål [neuter] (Danish), akademisk spørgsmål [neuter] (Danish), sivuseikka (Finnish), epäolennainen kysymys (Finnish), lillukanvarsi (Finnish), akademische Frage [feminine] (German), questione di lana caprina [feminine] (Italian), kwestia czysto akademicka [feminine] (Polish)
    Sense id: en-moot_point-en-noun-IRk-7bfp Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, English entries with language name categories using raw markup, English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 29 71 Disambiguation of English entries with language name categories using raw markup: 23 77 Disambiguation of English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys: 25 75 Disambiguation of 'issue that has been rendered irrelevant': 27 73

Inflected forms

Download JSON data for moot point meaning in English (6.6kB)

{
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "moot",
        "3": "point",
        "gloss1": "assembly",
        "id1": "assembly"
      },
      "expansion": "moot (“assembly”) + point",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "moot (“assembly”) + point",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "moot points",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "moot point (plural moot points)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1919 August, P. G. Wodehouse, “Prohibition and the Drama”, in Vanity Fair, page 21",
          "text": "In this age of moot points—some mooter than others, others possibly a shade less moot than some—perhaps the mootest point of any is, What is happening to the drama now that July 1st is behind us? This surely is a point of which the mootness cannot escape the most ivory-domed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Barney Hoskyns, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits, Faber & Faber, page 155",
          "text": "Exactly which of the songs on Small Change originated in London is a moot point.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 November 12, Paul Evans, “Burning red the hawthorn brings to mind moots and magic rituals”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "It is possible that a special hawthorn grew on this hill hundreds of years ago and that it was a meeting place. Hawthorns marked moots, or assemblies to decide issues of local importance and manorial courts. This one may still be a “moot point” – something arguable, undecided, contested, its original function lost generations ago.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An issue that is subject to, or open for, discussion or debate, to which no satisfactory answer is found; originally, one to be definitively determined by an assembly of the people."
      ],
      "id": "en-moot_point-en-noun-khdvdyIo",
      "links": [
        [
          "issue",
          "issue"
        ],
        [
          "discussion",
          "discussion"
        ],
        [
          "debate",
          "debate"
        ],
        [
          "assembly",
          "assembly"
        ]
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "cs",
          "lang": "Czech",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "předmět diskuse"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "stridspunkt"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "åbent spørgsmål"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "word": "tahtokysymys"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "word": "kiistanalainen kysymys"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "word": "päätettävä asia"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "contentieux"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "Streitpunkt"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "offene Frage"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "fragliche Sache"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "el",
          "lang": "Greek",
          "roman": "amfilegómeno théma",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "αμφιλεγόμενο θέμα"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "kwestia do dyskusji"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "kwestia dyskusyjna"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "ro",
          "lang": "Romanian",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "word": "punct de discuție"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "ru",
          "lang": "Russian",
          "roman": "spórnyj voprós",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "спо́рный вопро́с"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "73 27",
          "code": "uk",
          "lang": "Ukrainian",
          "roman": "spírne pytánnja",
          "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "спі́рне пита́ння"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "_dis": "29 71",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "23 77",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with language name categories using raw markup",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        },
        {
          "_dis": "25 75",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
          "parents": [
            "Terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w+disamb"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Until we rebuild downtown, whether we build more parking spaces is a moot point.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An issue regarded as potentially debatable, but no longer practically applicable. Although the idea may still be worth debating and exploring academically, and such discussion may be useful for addressing similar issues in the future, the idea has been rendered irrelevant for the present issue."
      ],
      "id": "en-moot_point-en-noun-IRk-7bfp",
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "39 61",
          "word": "non-issue"
        }
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "_dis1": "27 73",
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "teoretisk spørgsmål"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "27 73",
          "code": "da",
          "lang": "Danish",
          "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "akademisk spørgsmål"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "27 73",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
          "word": "sivuseikka"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "27 73",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
          "word": "epäolennainen kysymys"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "27 73",
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
          "word": "lillukanvarsi"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "27 73",
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "akademische Frage"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "27 73",
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "questione di lana caprina"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "27 73",
          "code": "pl",
          "lang": "Polish",
          "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "kwestia czysto akademicka"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "moot point"
}
{
  "categories": [
    "English compound terms",
    "English contranyms",
    "English countable nouns",
    "English entries with incorrect language header",
    "English entries with language name categories using raw markup",
    "English lemmas",
    "English multiword terms",
    "English nouns",
    "English terms with non-redundant non-automated sortkeys"
  ],
  "etymology_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "moot",
        "3": "point",
        "gloss1": "assembly",
        "id1": "assembly"
      },
      "expansion": "moot (“assembly”) + point",
      "name": "af"
    }
  ],
  "etymology_text": "moot (“assembly”) + point",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "moot points",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "moot point (plural moot points)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "non-issue"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Quotation templates to be cleaned"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1919 August, P. G. Wodehouse, “Prohibition and the Drama”, in Vanity Fair, page 21",
          "text": "In this age of moot points—some mooter than others, others possibly a shade less moot than some—perhaps the mootest point of any is, What is happening to the drama now that July 1st is behind us? This surely is a point of which the mootness cannot escape the most ivory-domed.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2009, Barney Hoskyns, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits, Faber & Faber, page 155",
          "text": "Exactly which of the songs on Small Change originated in London is a moot point.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2014 November 12, Paul Evans, “Burning red the hawthorn brings to mind moots and magic rituals”, in The Guardian, →ISSN",
          "text": "It is possible that a special hawthorn grew on this hill hundreds of years ago and that it was a meeting place. Hawthorns marked moots, or assemblies to decide issues of local importance and manorial courts. This one may still be a “moot point” – something arguable, undecided, contested, its original function lost generations ago.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An issue that is subject to, or open for, discussion or debate, to which no satisfactory answer is found; originally, one to be definitively determined by an assembly of the people."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "issue",
          "issue"
        ],
        [
          "discussion",
          "discussion"
        ],
        [
          "debate",
          "debate"
        ],
        [
          "assembly",
          "assembly"
        ]
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [
        "English terms with usage examples"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "text": "Until we rebuild downtown, whether we build more parking spaces is a moot point.",
          "type": "example"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "An issue regarded as potentially debatable, but no longer practically applicable. Although the idea may still be worth debating and exploring academically, and such discussion may be useful for addressing similar issues in the future, the idea has been rendered irrelevant for the present issue."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "cs",
      "lang": "Czech",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "předmět diskuse"
    },
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "stridspunkt"
    },
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "åbent spørgsmål"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "word": "tahtokysymys"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "word": "kiistanalainen kysymys"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "word": "päätettävä asia"
    },
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "contentieux"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Streitpunkt"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "offene Frage"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "fragliche Sache"
    },
    {
      "code": "el",
      "lang": "Greek",
      "roman": "amfilegómeno théma",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "αμφιλεγόμενο θέμα"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "kwestia do dyskusji"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "kwestia dyskusyjna"
    },
    {
      "code": "ro",
      "lang": "Romanian",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "word": "punct de discuție"
    },
    {
      "code": "ru",
      "lang": "Russian",
      "roman": "spórnyj voprós",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "спо́рный вопро́с"
    },
    {
      "code": "uk",
      "lang": "Ukrainian",
      "roman": "spírne pytánnja",
      "sense": "issue that is open for debate",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "спі́рне пита́ння"
    },
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "teoretisk spørgsmål"
    },
    {
      "code": "da",
      "lang": "Danish",
      "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "akademisk spørgsmål"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
      "word": "sivuseikka"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
      "word": "epäolennainen kysymys"
    },
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
      "word": "lillukanvarsi"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "akademische Frage"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "questione di lana caprina"
    },
    {
      "code": "pl",
      "lang": "Polish",
      "sense": "issue that has been rendered irrelevant",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "kwestia czysto akademicka"
    }
  ],
  "word": "moot point"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English 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.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.