Noun: motto
| Singular | motto |
| Plural | mottos; mottoes |
Sample Sentences
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You have to be in it to win it — that's my motto.
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‘Gentlemen, I can tell you what the new queen will take as her motto. It is Bound to Obey and Serve.’ [2020, Hilary Mantel, The Mirror and the Light, Fourth Estate, page 10:]
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It was the motto of a bishop eminent for his piety and good works, ... Serve God, and be cheerful. [1715 June 4 (Gregorian calendar), Joseph Addison, “The Free-holder: No. 45. Tuesday, May 25. [1715.]”, in The Works of the Right Honourable Joseph Addison, Esq; […], volume IV, London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], published 1721, →OCLC:]
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“[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like
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Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer. […]” [1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:]
Nouns inflected like motto
great go,
great-go,
senhor,
afrancesado,
sprite halo,
shacko,
commando,
villiaco,
magic Negro,
Phnom Laang bent-toed gecko,
chacmool,
yerbal,
depressor,
bombolo,
bolivar,
bolívar,
buccinator,
boratto,
botargo,
slashed zero, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
Borrowed from Italian motto (“a word, a saying”), from Latin muttum (“a mutter, a grunt”), late 16th c. Doublet of mot. See: Italian Nouns '
motto', Latin Nouns '
muttum'.
Verbs referencing "motto"
Hungarian Nouns
mottó.