moot point
Appearance
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]From moot (“assembly”) + point.
Noun
[edit]moot point (plural moot points)
- 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.
- 1919 August, P. G. Wodehouse, “Prohibition and the Drama”, in Vanity Fair, page 21:
- 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.
- 2009, Barney Hoskyns, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits, Faber & Faber, page 155:
- Exactly which of the songs on Small Change originated in London is a moot point.
- 2014 November 12, Paul Evans, “Burning red the hawthorn brings to mind moots and magic rituals”, in The Guardian[1], →ISSN:
- 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.
- An issue hardly worth debating because it is no longer practically applicable.
- Until we rebuild downtown, whether we build more parking spaces is a moot point.
- Who really owned that horse is a moot point now that it has run away.
Usage notes
[edit]- The first usage given above is the original meaning of the phrase.
- The second usage given is modern and is the meaning more commonly understood in American English, possibly because of the association with moot court.
Translations
[edit]issue that is open for debate
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issue that has been rendered irrelevant
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See also
[edit]Further reading
[edit]- Gary Martin (1997–), “Moot point”, in The Phrase Finder.