moot point

Definition

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.

Etymology

From moot (“assembly”) + point.

Example Sentences

• "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."
• "Exactly which of the songs on Small Change originated in London is a moot point."
• "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."