Meanings
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noun
A massive structure, usually of stone, used as a pier, breakwater or junction between places separated by water.
[Alexander the Great] then conceived the stupendous idea of constructing a mole, which should at once connect [Tyre] with the main land; and this was actually accomplished by driving piles and pouring in incalculable quantities of soil and fragments of rock; and it is generally believed, partly on the authority of ancient authors, that the whole ruins of Old Tyre were absorbed in this vast enterprize, and buried in the depths of the sea [...].
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Thesaurus
Appears in
Simplified etymology
Mole represents several unrelated words. The skin blemish is the oldest, developing from an Old English word for a discoloured spot on cloth; the pier or breakwater sense entered in late Middle English from Latin moles ‘mass’. The name of the burrowing animal appeared in the later Middle Ages, replacing earlier names such as want and mouldwarp, while mole for a deeply embedded spy was popularized by John le Carré's 1974 novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Etymology
From Middle English molle, molde, mole (“mole”), ultimately from Proto-West Germanic *mol(h), from Proto-Germanic *mulaz, *mulhaz (“mole, salamander”), from Proto-Indo-European *molg-, *molk- (“slug, salamander”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)melw- (“to grind, crush, beat”). Cognate with North Frisian mull (“mole”), Saterland Frisian Molle (“mole”), Dutch mol (“mole”), German Low German Mol, Mul, Mull (“mole”), German Molch (“salamander, newt”), Old Russian смолжь (smolžʹ, “snail”), Czech mlž (“clam”). Derivation as an abbreviation of Middle English molewarpe, a variation of moldewarpe, moldwe...