Moting

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Dotting or flecking a surface with tiny specks of dust, grit or similar fine particles
2. Scattering small speck-like fragments across something so that it looks flecked
3. Covering a surface with minute bits, such as motes of dust drifting through light

Etymology: "Moting" is the present participle of "mote," a verb meaning to speckle or dot with small spots or specks. The noun "mote," a tiny particle of dust or speck, is the older and better-known sense, from Old English "mot," and the verb developed from it. The verb is rare today and appears mostly in poetry and literary description, which is why it can look like a typo for "motting" or "moating." The verb's line of descent runs through the noun. Old English "mot" referred to a small particle, and the same word survives in the phrase "mote in thine eye," drawn from the Bible's Gospel of Matthew, where a speck in another person's eye is contrasted with a beam in one's own. Over time the noun was used for any tiny speck, and speakers turned it into a verb meaning to cover something with such specks. Because "moting" is simply the participle form, its history is the history of "mote" itself. The word has no separate origin of its own, and its meaning stays close to the physical sense of a fleck or speck.