Definition of "mola" []

• A colorful fabric panel of Central American origin, sewn with a reverse-appliqué technique and used for decorative purposes, as on clothing or furniture or as a wall hanging. (noun)
• See ocean sunfish. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "We must suppose the reason to be that woman alone among animals is subject to troubles of the uterus, and alone has a superfluous amount of catamenia and is unable to concoct them; when, then, the embryo has been formed of a liquid hard to concoct, then comes the so-called mola into being, and this happens naturally in women alone or at any rate more than in other animals."
• "We must also speak of what is known as mola uteri, which occurs rarely in women but still is found sometimes during pregnancy."
• "For they produce what is called a mola; it has happened before now to a woman, after she had had intercourse with her husband and supposed she had conceived, that at first the size of her belly increased and everything else happened accordingly, but yet when the time for birth came on, she neither bore a child nor was her size reduced, but she continued thus for three or four years until dysentery came on, endangering her life, and she produced a lump of flesh which is called mola."