mite
/maɪt/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.08 in modern English
6
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
Any of many minute arachnids which, along with the ticks, comprise subclass Acari (syn. Acarina).
verb
Eye dialect spelling of might.
Example Sentences
- "One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;"
- "a mite"
- "It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing — and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite — that is all he did."
- ""Well," I says, "I cal'late a body could get used to Tophet if he stayed there long enough." She flared up; the least mite of a slam at Doctor Wool was enough to set her going."
- ""Silas, now," Esther Whitley had said, "would be a good one for you, Hannah. He's a mite on the old side, but he's steady, an' he's been wed before. He knows the ways of a woman better'n some.""
- "Those trousers are a mite too big, but you'll soon grow into them."
Etymology
From Middle English mite, from Old English mīte (“mite, tiny insect”), from Proto-West Germanic *mītā, from Proto-Germanic *mītǭ (“biting insect”, literally “cutter”), from *maitaną (“to cut”), from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“small”) or *meh₂y- (“to cut”). Akin to Old High German mīza (“mite”), Middle Dutch mīte (“moth, mite”), Dutch mijt (“moth, mite”), Danish mide (“mite”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: mite, mīte, *mītā, *mītǭ, *mey-
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /maɪt/
- British English: /maɪt/