The AI-powered English dictionary
plural moot points
An issue that is subject to, or open for, discussion or debate, to which no satisfactory answer is found; originally, one to be definitively determined by an assembly of the people. quotations examples
In this age of moot points—some mooter than others, others possibly a shade less moot than some—perhaps the mootest point of any is, What is happening to the drama now that July 1st is behind us? This surely is a point of which the mootness cannot escape the most ivory-domed.
1919 August, P. G. Wodehouse, “Prohibition and the Drama”, in Vanity Fair, page 21
Exactly which of the songs on Small Change originated in London is a moot point.
2009, Barney Hoskyns, Lowside of the Road: A Life of Tom Waits, Faber & Faber, page 155
It is possible that a special hawthorn grew on this hill hundreds of years ago and that it was a meeting place. Hawthorns marked moots, or assemblies to decide issues of local importance and manorial courts. This one may still be a “moot point” – something arguable, undecided, contested, its original function lost generations ago.
2014 November 12, Paul Evans, “Burning red the hawthorn brings to mind moots and magic rituals”, in The Guardian
An issue regarded as potentially debatable, but no longer practically applicable. Although the idea may still be worth debating and exploring academically, and such discussion may be useful for addressing similar issues in the future, the idea has been rendered irrelevant for the present issue. examples