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  1. mickle love

Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. adj. Great.
  2. adv. Greatly.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. Great; large.
  2. Much; abundant.
  3. n. Size; magnitude; bigness.
  4. n. A great deal; a large quantity: as, many littles make a mickle.
  5. To magnify.

Wiktionary

  1. adj. Large, great.
  2. adj. A great quantity or amount of.
  3. n. A great amount.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. adj. Old Eng. & Scot. Much; great.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent

Etymologies

  1. From Middle English mikel, muchel, mochel, mukel, from Old English miċel, myċel, (now chiefly Northumbrian and Scottish). (Wiktionary)
  2. Middle English mikel, from Old English micel and from Old Norse mikill; see meg- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)

Examples

  • “He does not regard the Scotchman's "mickle," because he does not stop to consider that the end is a "muckle.”

    The Negro Problem

  • “Another and sadder "mickle" has been the departure of ten lepers for”

    The Hawaiian Archipelago

  • “Aye, weel, mony a mickle mak's a muckle, as Papa used to say.”

    Fictionaut: Watershed

  • “Many proverbs use alliteration: "Many a mickle (little) makes a muckle (lot)," rhyme: "Man proposes, God disposes," parallelism: "Nothing ventured, nothing gained," ellipsis: "First come, first served," etc.”

    Forbes: The Nature Of Proverbs

  • “Miss Clara does not merit respect and kindness at your hand; but I doubt mickle if she wad care a bodle for thae braw things.”

    Saint Ronan's Well

  • “‘And ye ken mickle less of my hinnie, sir,’ replied Maggie,”

    Redgauntlet

  • “Telford take the mickle brown aver and the black cut-tailed mare, and make out towards the Kerry-craigs, and see what tidings you can have of”

    The Abbot

  • “As for the lust of the belly, eating and drinking, what pleaseth Allah thereof is that each take naught save that which the Almighty hath appointed him be it little or mickle, and praise the Lord and thank Him; and what angereth Him thereof is that a man take that which is not his by right.”

    The Book of The Thousand Nights And A Night

  • “When Sir John Good-Ale heard of this, Thomas Good-Ale he came with mickle might”

    John Barleycorn

  • “Albeit Hagen sprang at Gelfrat fiercely, the noble margrave smote from his shield a mickle piece, so that the sparks flew wide.”

    The Nibelungenlied

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synonyms (2)

Words with the same meaning

  1. much
  1. great

hypernyms (2)

Words that are more generic or abstract

  1. large indefinite quantity
  1. large indefinite amount

hyponyms (5)

Words that are more specific

  1. inundation
  1. flood
  1. deluge
  1. torrent
  1. haymow

same context (8)

Words that are found in similar contexts

  1. myckle
  1. valourous
  1. unnumbered
  1. syke
  1. wap
  1. untold
  1. everych
  1. muckle

rhymes (12)

Words with the same terminal sound

  1. Mikel
  2. Nicol
  1. brickle
  2. ferronickel
  1. fickle
  2. nickel
  1. nickle
  2. pickle
  1. sickle
  2. stickle
  1. tickle
  2. trickle

reverse dictionary (12)

Words that contain this word in their definition

  1. meikle
  2. mekill
  1. Michel
  2. Mikel
  1. mochel
  2. mokel
  1. muckle
  2. mockle
  1. fell
  2. le
  1. mickle
  2. most

tagging (1)

Words tagged ‘mickle’

  1. mikel

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘mickle’.

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Comments

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  • knitandpurl "As a result, the authorities of his country, the United States of America, have made him swear a mickle oath of secrecy, and keep supplying him with new uniforms of various services and ranks, and now have sent him to London."
    Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson, p 146 of the Avon Books paperback edition Jan 28, 2013

  • itz_chucknorris sounds like Nickels.... which are just as good!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
    Oct 28, 2010

  • bilby "Many a little makes a micle."
    - William Camden, 'Remaines of a greater worke concerning Britaine, 1605'.
    Oct 23, 2008

  • bookhling Mickle is supposed to mean a lot? This is quite confounding. Aug 18, 2008

  • sionnach It was only through a question on the buy vaccines site (which, I regret to say, is considerable lamer than the freerice site) that I learned yesterday that a 'mickle' is, in fact, a large quantity, not an infinitesimal one. Because of the proverb I had always thought a mickle was like a drop in the bucket.

    But it could also be argued that it's counterintuitive to have the two words mean the same thing. One is inclined to think of analogies like 'micro/macro', where the vowel change indicates a shift in meaning. Aug 2, 2008

  • bilby I had a few Scots swear white and blue at me that sionny's version of the proverb was correct. I claimed it wasn't, based essentially on what qroqqa has explained. Modern usage decoupled from history again. Aug 2, 2008

  • qroqqa 'Mickle' and 'muckle' are dialectal variants of the same word; it is related to Latin magn-, Greek megal-, Sanskrit mah-. Its palatalized form is seen in Tolkien's Michel Delving in the Shire; and a variant of this gave rise to Middle English 'much'.

    The confusion of the proverb—treating 'mickle' and 'muckle' as opposites instead of synonyms—is first recorded in the papers of one George Washington, who calls it 'a Scotch addage'. Aug 1, 2008

  • sionnach I'd always heard this proverb as "many a mickle makes a muckle". Dec 10, 2007

  • bilby Proverb: Many a little makes a mickle. Dec 9, 2007

  • brtom "And whiles they spake the door of the castle was opened and there nighed them a mickle noise as of many that sat there at meat. "
    Joyce, Ulysses, 14 Jan 19, 2007

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‘mickle’ has been looked up 2335 times, loved by 1 person, added to 18 lists, commented on 10 times, and has a Scrabble score of 14.