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malt.

Malted grain (sprouted grain) (usually barley), used in brewing and otherwise.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/mɒlt/UK/mɔːlt/UK/mɔlt/US/mɑlt/cot-caught-merger
  1. Malted grain (sprouted grain) (usually barley), used in brewing and otherwise.

    countable · uncountable
  2. Malt liquor, especially malt whisky.

    countable · uncountable
  3. A milkshake with malted milk powder added for flavor.

    US · countable · informal · uncountable
  4. Maltose-rich sugar derived from malted grain.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English malt, from Old English mealt, from Proto-West Germanic *malt, from Proto-Germanic *maltą (“malt”), from *maltaz (“soft; nesh; weak; squashy; melting”), from Proto-Indo-European *meld-, *mled- (“to crush; grind; make weak”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Moalt (“malt”), Dutch mout (“malt”), German Malz (“malt”), Swedish malt (“malt”), Old Church Slavonic младъ (mladŭ, “tender; young”), Russian молодой (molodoj, “young; fresh; new”). The Proto-Germanic noun was borrowed into Proto-Slavic as *malta; compare Ukrainian мо́лот (mólot), Czech mláto. More at melt.

verb/mɒlt/UK/mɔːlt/UK/mɔlt/US/mɑlt/cot-caught-merger
  1. To convert a cereal grain into malt by causing it to sprout (by soaking in water) and then halting germination (by drying with hot air) in order to develop enzymes that can break down starches and proteins in the grain.

    transitive
  2. To become malt.

    intransitive
  3. To drink malt liquor.

    dated · humorous · intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English malt, from Old English mealt, from Proto-West Germanic *malt, from Proto-Germanic *maltą (“malt”), from *maltaz (“soft; nesh; weak; squashy; melting”), from Proto-Indo-European *meld-, *mled- (“to crush; grind; make weak”). Cognate with Saterland Frisian Moalt (“malt”), Dutch mout (“malt”), German Malz (“malt”), Swedish malt (“malt”), Old Church Slavonic младъ (mladŭ, “tender; young”), Russian молодой (molodoj, “young; fresh; new”). The Proto-Germanic noun was borrowed into Proto-Slavic as *malta; compare Ukrainian мо́лот (mólot), Czech mláto. More at melt.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.