Moating

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Surrounding a castle, town or building with a deep, water-filled ditch for defense ; building a protective water barrier around a fortified place
2. Encircling a fortress or stronghold with a wide trench of water to keep attackers out ; equipping a structure with a water-filled defensive channel
3. Ringing a stronghold with a broad, water-filled ditch as a barrier against invasion ; fortifying a place by digging a moat around it

Etymology: "Moating" is the present participle of "moat", so the history belongs to the noun. A moat began as a mound rather than a ditch. Middle English "mote" came from Old French "mote", meaning a mound or embankment, which in turn related to Medieval Latin "mota", a hill. Those forms likely came from a Germanic source meaning mud, peat or bog, so the word's oldest sense points to damp ground that was piled up or dug out, and the water-filled ditch came later. The Germanic family is revealing. Its relatives include a dialect Dutch word for fine dust and sand, a Swedish verb meaning to drizzle, and an Old English word for a speck or particle. These share a root that seems to connect earth, dirt and wetness, so the moat and the mud around a fortress were once closely linked in meaning. In modern business writing, "moating" is an investor's term. It refers to a company's competitive advantage that protects it from rivals, and it was popularized by the American investor Warren Buffett. The metaphor is a castle surrounded by water, which is the sense the medieval noun already carried.

Synonyms: surround, encircle, ring, fortify