Word of the Day

: April 6, 2019

moiety

noun MOY-uh-tee

What It Means

1 a : one of two equal parts : half

b : one of two approximately equal parts

2 : one of the portions into which something is divided : component, part

3 : one of two basic complementary tribal subdivisions

moiety in Context

"They came from the sea—these members of the Eagle moiety—paddling their ceremonial canoes, singing traditional songs. Waiting on the shore were members of the Raven moiety, counterparts to the Eagles in the traditional world of the Haida Indians." — Doug O'Harra, The Anchorage (Alaska) Daily News, 15 Sep. 1996

"Most of the glucose in the body goes directly into cells where it's modified to produce the energy source ATP. However about 5 percent of all glucose is converted to another sugar moiety, O-GlcNAc, one of the sugar types that can modify proteins." — ScienceDaily.com, 12 May 2009

Did You Know?

Moiety is one of thousands of words that English speakers borrowed from French. The Anglo-French moité (meaning "a half" or "part of something") comes from Late Latin medietat-, meaning "a half." Around the same time that moiety was borrowed from Anglo-French, medietat- was also borrowed directly from Latin as mediety, a word which can also mean "a half." Medietat- comes from Latin medius (meaning "middle"), which has contributed to such English words as medium, meridian, and milieu.