mite

See also: mité, mitë, mī-tê, and Mite

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

mite

Wikipedia

A rust mite

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”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation, General American) enPR: mīt, IPA^(key): /maɪt/

• Audio (General American):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -aɪt
• Homophone: might

Noun

mite (plural mites)

1. Any of many minute arachnids which, along with the ticks, comprise subclass Acarina (aka Acari).
2. A small coin formerly circulated in England, rated at about a third of a farthing.
   • 1803, William Blake, Auguries of Innocence:

     One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
     Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;

3. A lepton, a small coin used in Palestine in the time of Christ.
4. A small weight; one twentieth of a grain.
5. (sometimes used adverbially) Anything very small; a minute object; a very little quantity or particle.

   a mite

   • 1903 March 17, Mark Twain, letter to Helen Keller:

     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.

   • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:

     "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.

   • 1956, Janice Holt Giles, chapter 8, in Hannah Fowler, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, →OCLC; republished Lexington, Ky.: University Press of Kentucky, 1992, →ISBN, page 69:

     "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."

   • 1959, Frances Cavanah, Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance, Chicago, Ill.: Rand McNally, →OCLC; Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance (ReadHowYouWant Classics Library), EasyRead large edition, U.S.A.: ReadHowYouWant, 2008, →ISBN, page 30:

     Those trousers are a mite too big, but you'll soon grow into them.

6. (colloquial, often used affectionately) A small or naughty person, or one people take pity on; rascal.
   • 1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 35:

     Today's children at Christmas-time take a cast-off toy to the Toy Service held in many churches, and it is a pretty sight to watch those tiny mites clutching their toys and parting from them.j

   • 2014, Lorraine F Elli, The Little Town Mouse:

     “Tom told me that, but twasn't your fault, the little mite just couldn't wait to be born that's all.” A small smile played on Leah's lips.

Synonyms

• (small amount): see also Thesaurus:modicum.

Derived terms

• air-sac mite (Cytleichus nudus)
• a mite
• bee mite (Varroa destructor)
• beetle mite (Oribatoidea spp.)
• bird mite (Ornithonyssus spp.)
• blackberry mite (Aceria essigi)
• book mite
• broad mite
• carpet mite (Psoroptidae spp.)
• cat fur mite (Cheyletiella blakei)
• cheese mite (Tyrolichus casei)
• chicken mite
• clover mite (Bryobia praetiosa)
• common house mite (Glycyphagus domesticus)
• dog fur mite (Cheyletiella yasguri)
• dust mite (Reduvius personatus, Dermatophagoides spp.)
• ear mite (Otodectes cynotis)
• eyelash mite
• feather mite
• flour mite (Acarus siro)
• follicle mite
• fruit mite (Carpoglyphus lactis et al.)
• furniture mite (Glycyphagus domesticus)
• gall mite
• harvest mite (Trombicula spp.)
• house dust mite (Dermatophagoides pteronyssinus)
• house mouse mite (Liponyssoides sanguineus)
• itch mite (Sarcoptes scabiei)
• mite box
• mite cheese
• moss mite
• peacock mite
• prune mite (Carpoglyphus lactis)
• quill mite
• rabbit ear mite
• rabbit fur mite (Cheyletiella parasitovorax)
• red mite (Dermanyssus gallinae)
• red velvet mite
• rust mite
• spider mite (Tetranychidae spp.)
• spiny rat mite (Laelaps echidnina)
• stock mites (Lepidoglyphus, Acarus, Tyrophagus, Tydeus, Cheyletus, Tarsonemus spp.)
• storage mite (Acarus siro)
• sugar mite (Lepidoglyphus destructor)
• trombiculid mite (Trombiculidae spp.)
• tropical rat mite (Ornithonyssus bacoti)
• water mite
• wheat mite (Acarus siro)
• widow's mite
• Willamette mite, Willamette spider mite (Tetranycus willamette)
• wing mite (Pterolichus obtusus)
• wood mite (Oribatidae spp.)

 

Translations

arachnid

Abkhaz: please add this translation if you can Adyghe: please add this translation if you can Arabic: سُوسَة f (sūsa) Armenian: please add this translation if you can Assamese: চাহী (sahi) Belarusian: клешч m (klješč) Bulgarian: кърлеж (bg) m (kǎrlež), ака́р m (akár) Burmese: ရွ (my) (rwa.) Catalan: àcar m Central Mazahua: ts'imexe Chinese: Mandarin: 蟎／螨 (zh) (mǎn) Czech: roztoč (cs) m Danish: mide c Dutch: mijt (nl) f Esperanto: akaro (eo) Finnish: punkki (fi) French: acarien (fr) Galician: ácaro m Georgian: ტკიპა (ka) (ṭḳiṗa) German: Milbe (de) f Alemannic German: Milme f Greek: σκουληκάκι (el) n (skoulikáki) Ancient: ἀκαρί n (akarí) Hebrew: קרדית (he) f (kardít) Hungarian: atka (hu), kukac (hu) Ilocano: tungaw Indonesian: tungau (id) Irish: fíneog f Italian: acaro (it) m Japanese: 壁蝨 (ja) (だに, ダニ, dani) Khmer: ចៃ (km) (cay), មមង់ (km) (mɔmʊəŋ) Korean: 진드기 (ko) (jindeugi) Latgalian: ērce f Latin: acarus m Latvian: ērce f Lithuanian: erkė f Low German: Miet (nds) f Maori: ngaoki Navajo: yaaʼ Norman: mite f (Jersey) Norwegian: mit (no) m, midd (no) m Occitan: acarian Persian: هیره (fa) (hire) Polish: roztocze (pl) n, roztocz (pl) m Portuguese: ácaro (pt) m Romanian: acarian (ro) m Russian: клещ (ru) m (klešč) Serbo-Croatian: grȉnja f Sorbian: Lower Sorbian: milba f, weška f Spanish: ácaro (es) m Swedish: kvalster (sv) Tagalog: kagaw Thai: please add this translation if you can Turkish: akar (tr) Ukrainian: кліщ (uk) m (klišč) Vietnamese: bét (vi), ve (vi) Welsh: gwiddon m pl, euddon m pl West Coast Bajau: please add this translation if you can Wolof: please add this translation if you can Yiddish: please add this translation if you can Yucatec Maya: please add this translation if you can Yup'ik: please add this translation if you can Yámana: please add this translation if you can Zazaki: please add this translation if you can Zhuang: please add this translation if you can Zulu: please add this translation if you can

third of a farthing

Esperanto: lepto Irish: cianóg f

lepton — see lepton

one twentieth of a grain

anything very small

Finnish: hitunen (fi), hiukkanen (fi), rahtunen (fi); ropo (fi) (trifle amount of money); pikkuisen (fi) (adverb) German: bisschen (de), Winzigkeit (de) f Persian: پشیز (fa) (pašiz) Russian: малость (ru) f (malostʹ), мизер (ru) m (mizer)

rascal — see rascal

Verb

mite

1. Eye dialect spelling of might.

Anagrams

• item, METI, Item, EMT-I, it me, time, emit, -time

Au

Noun

mite

1. woman

References

• transnewguinea.org, citing D. C. Laycock, Languages of the Lumi Subdistrict (West Sepik District), New Guinea (1968), Oceanic Linguistics, 7 (1): 36-66

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin mythos.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central, Balearic) [ˈmi.tə]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈmi.te]

Noun

mite m (plural mites)

1. myth

Related terms

• mític
• mitologia

Further reading

• “mite” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

French

French Wikipedia has an article on:

mite

Wikipedia ^fr

Etymology

Inherited from Middle French, from Old French mitte (“kind of insect which gnaws on cloth or cheese”), from Middle Dutch mīte (“moth, mite”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *mītǭ (“biting insect”, literally “cutter”), from *maitaną (“to cut”).

Akin to Old English mīte (“mite, tiny insect”), Old High German mīza (“mite”), Danish mide (“mite”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mit/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

mite f (plural mites)

1. mite (arachnid)
2. moth, particularly one whose larva destroys something stored by humans

Derived terms

• antimite
• boule à mites

Related terms

• acarien m
• chenille f
• papillon m
• teigne f (“clothes moth”)
• pyrale f (“meal moth”)

Verb

mite

1. inflection of miter:
   1. first/third-person singular present indicative/subjunctive
   2. second-person singular imperative

Further reading

• “mite”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Anagrams

• émit, émît

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin mītem (“mild, mature”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmi.te/
• Rhymes: -ite
• Hyphenation: mì‧te

• Audio:

  (file)

Adjective

mite (plural miti)

1. mild
2. moderate (price)
3. balmy, mild (climate)

   quest'anno è stato un gennaio mite

   January has been mild this year

4. meek (animal)

Derived terms

• mitemente

Further reading

• mite in Treccani.it – Vocabolario Treccani on line, Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana

Anagrams

• item, temi

Latin

Pronunciation

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): /ˈmiː.te/, [ˈmiːt̪ɛ]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ˈmi.te/, [ˈmiːt̪e]

Adjective

mīte

1. nominative/accusative/vocative neuter singular of mītis

References

• “mite”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “mite”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers

Norman

Etymology

From Old French mitte (“kind of insect which gnaws on cloth or cheese”), from Middle Dutch mīte (“moth, mite”), ultimately from Proto-Germanic *mītǭ (“biting insect”, literally “cutter”).

Noun

mite f (plural mites)

1. (Jersey) mite

Portuguese

Verb

mite

1. inflection of mitar:
   1. first/third-person singular present subjunctive
   2. third-person singular imperative

Volapük

Noun

mite

1. dative singular of mit