mothy

7.8

Clothes or fabric that have holes made by small insects

adjective
/ˈmɔːθi/

: comido por polillas

Examples

I immediately pieced Toby's fly rod together, attached the reel, and geared him up with a large woolly caddis, the kind of mothy thing that bred thickly on this part of the river.

Fiction book (1994)
The mothy sweater had holes that made it unwearable.
She discovered a mothy old quilt in the attic, full of larvae and tears.
He decided to throw away the mothy curtains since they were no longer usable.

Synonyms

moth-eaten

vsmothy

1 4.8

Old clothing or fabric with small holes made by moths

has actual holes or visible insect damage rather than only a shabby appearance

Antonyms

intact

304 3.7

Whole and not damaged or missing any parts

undamaged

12 2.4

Not harmed or broken and still in its original condition

How Moth-Damaged

destroyed

4.3

moth-eaten

1 4.8

mothy

7.8

worn

4 2.1

intact

304 3.7

Surface Forms

mothy positive

Morphology

mothy = moth (transparent) = moth + y

The adjective is a regular formation from the noun 'moth' with '-y', meaning 'characterized by or full of moths / moth damage', which is directly inferable.

Etymology

The word mothy comes from moth (a small insect that eats cloth) plus the ending -y, which means 'full of' or 'having'. So mothy means 'damaged by moths' or 'full of holes from moths', which is why we call old clothes or curtains mothy.