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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

moulder.

Often followed by away or down: to cause (something) to decay or rot, or to crumble to pieces.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ˈməʊldə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈmoʊldəɹ/General-American
  1. Often followed by away or down: to cause (something) to decay or rot, or to crumble to pieces.

    Northern-England · Scotland · UK · transitive
  2. To cause (someone or something) to die away or disappear.

    UK · figuratively · obsolete · transitive
  3. Often followed by away: to decay or rot, or to crumble to pieces.

    UK · intransitive
  4. To die away, to disappear.

    UK · figuratively · intransitive
  5. Often followed by away: of a group of people (especially an army): to diminish in number; to dwindle.

    UK · figuratively · intransitive · obsolete
Where this word comes from

From mould (“loose friable soil; rotting earth regarded as the substance of the human body”) + -er (suffix forming frequentative verbs), probably influenced by mould (“furry growth of fungi”). Mould is derived from Middle English mold, molde (“loose friable soil, dirt, earth; earth as the substance out of which God made man, and to which the human body decays into after death”), from Old English molde (“earth, soil”), from Proto-Germanic *muldō (“dirt, soil; furry growth of fungi, mould”), from Proto-Indo-European *melh₂- (“to crush, grind”).

noun/ˈməʊldə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈmoʊldəɹ/General-American
  1. A person who moulds dough into loaves for baking into bread.

    UK · archaic
  2. A person who moulds or shapes material into objects, especially clay into bricks, pottery, etc.

    UK · broadly
  3. An instrument or machine used to mould or shape material into objects.

    UK · broadly
  4. A person or thing that influences or shapes; an influencer, a shaper.

    UK · broadly · figuratively
  5. A person who makes moulds for casting metal; a mouldmaker.

    UK
Where this word comes from

Partly from the following: * From Middle English molder, moldere (“maker of bread, baker”), from molden (“to knead or shape (bread); to make bread, bake; to mix (something) by kneading; to shape, mould; to pulverize (?)”) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns, especially names of people engaged in professions or trades). Molden is derived from mold, molde (“model or pattern according to which a thing is made, mould”) + -en (suffix forming the infinitives of verbs); and mold, molde are borrowed from Old French molde, a variant of modle, molle (modern French moule), from Latin modulus (“small interval or measure; etc.”), diminutive of modus (“measure; manner, method”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to measure”). * From mould (“to shape in or on a mould; to form into a particular shape”, verb) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns).

noun/ˈməʊldə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈmoʊldəɹ/General-American
  1. Alternative spelling of mulder (“one or more crumbled pieces of food, especially oatcake; a crumb or crumbs”).

    Ireland · Orkney · Shetland · UK · alt-of · alternative · countable · uncountable
  2. Synonym of mould (“loose, friable soil”); also, dust.

    UK · obsolete · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Probably a variant of mould (“loose, friable soil”), influenced by moulder (“to decay or rot, or to crumble to pieces, etc.”) (etymology 1).

noun/ˈməʊldə/Received-Pronunciation/ˈmoʊldəɹ/General-American
  1. Synonym of mould (“a natural substance in the form of a furry or woolly growth of tiny fungi that appears when organic material lies for a long time exposed to (usually warm and moist) air”)

    UK · obsolete · rare · uncountable
Where this word comes from

Probably a variant of mould (“furry or woolly growth of tiny fungi”), influenced by moulder (“to decay or rot, or to crumble to pieces, etc.”) (etymology 1).

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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.