Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. A very small particle; a speck: "Dust motes hung in a slant of sunlight” ( Anne Tyler).
- v. Archaic May; might.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. A small particle, as of dust visible in a ray of sunlight; anything very small.
- n. A stain; a blemish.
- n. An imperfection in wool.
- n. The stalk of a plant.
- n. A match or squib with which, before the introduction of the safety-fuse, it was customary to ignite the charge in blasting.
- May; might: chiefly in the subjunctive: as, so mote it be.
- Must. See must.
- An obsolete form of moot.
- n. An obsolete form of moat.
- n. Motion.
- n. In cotton-spinning, a piece of broken cotton-seed, cotton-leaf, etc.
- n. Boiled grains of maize, a dish much eaten in Peru and Bolivia.
- To ride in a motor vehicle; engage in the sport of motoring.
Wiktionary
- n. A small particle; a speck.
- n. A tiny computer for remote sensing. Also known as smartdust.
- v. May or might.
- v. Must.
GNU Webster's 1913
- v. See 1st mot.
- n. A meeting of persons for discussion.
- n. A body of persons who meet for discussion, esp. about the management of affairs.
- n. A place of meeting for discussion.
- n. The flourish sounded on a horn by a huntsman. See mot, n., 3, and mort.
- n. A small particle, as of floating dust; anything proverbially small; a speck.
WordNet 3.0
- n. (nontechnical usage) a tiny piece of anything
Etymologies
- Middle English mot, from Old English.Middle English moten, from Old English mōtan; see med- in Indo-European roots.
Examples
“We are still trying to use our moral rectitude, but that mote is pretty obvious at present, and the values are, to be honest, quite empty.”
“And The Egoist is a satire; so much must be allowed; but it is a satire of a singular quality, which tells you nothing of that obvious mote, which is engaged from first to last with that invisible beam.”
“A mote, that is itself invisible, shall darken the august faculty of sight in a human eye -- the heavens shall be hidden by a wretched atom that dares not show itself -- and the station of a syllable shall cloud the judgment of a council.”
“God's gifts, and often make them occasions of sin; but this outcry of the beam against the mote, which is so grievously prevalent in the religious world, is very unseemly.”
“I am sending every "mote" I can envision that you and yours will not suffer from the ides of March, otherwise known as that mess the Republicans got us into.”
“Finally the _Lassie_, which had somehow been induced to "mote," was descried coming across the bay from the direction of the old fisherman's cabin.”
The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay or, The Secret of the Red Oar
“Tyndale could hardly have known Wyclif's version, which was never printed and was rare in manuscript, but his use of certain words, such as "mote,”
“In the New Testament the word occurs only in Matt. 7: 3, 4, 5, and Luke 6: 41, 42, where it means (Gr. dokos) a large piece of wood used for building purposes, as contrasted with "mote" (Gr. karphos), a small piece or mere splinter.”
“Hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of thine eye, and then thou shalt see clear to cast out the mote which is in the eye of thy brother.”
“September 5th, 2009 Hey Maa Mata Ji girl, Disha Wakhani is now very much aggravated by the word "mote".”
Gaea Times (by Simple Thoughts) Breaking News and incisive views 24/7
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘mote’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4084 more...
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Gene Wolfe
Please contribute your favorite words from any of Gene Wolfe’s books to this prize-winning list.
In case you come across words in this list which are too commonplace to fit in, please ...gallipot, roost, badelaire, oblesque, execration, dhole, amschaspand, arctother, chalcedony, penitence, asimi, autarch and 839 more...
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Collected Words - List 2
I've been saving these words FOR YEARS. Now, I've found Wordie
gasconade, zaccheus, spoor, precentor, bombazine, otiose, khamsin, bruited, viva voce, whilom, lenitive, ebullition and 244 more...
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Anglo-Saxon/Old English
Anglo-Saxon rootwords
mote, huru, byspel, elfshine, infaru, snotor, dern, upspring, meed, lof, queem, hof and 82 more...
AnWulf n. A mote, an atom :-- Mot attomos, Wrt. Voc. i. 284, 37: ii. 8, 10. Mote atomo, 9, 62. Tó hwí gesihst ðú ðæt mot (festucam) on ðínes bróðor égan, Mt. Kmbl. 7, 3, 5. Ðú gesáwe gehwǽde mot on ðínes bróðor eáge, R. Ben. 12, 3. Ðæt lytle mot ... ðone mot, Lk. Skt. Lind. 6, 41, 42.
Bosworth, J. (2010, March 21). An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online (T. N. Toller & Others, Eds.). Mot. Retrieved August 22, 2011, from http://bosworth.ff.cuni.cz/023189
There is, AFAIK, no attested link between mot and mótan. Don't look at likeness and go from that. Aug 22, 2011
manilamac Sorry, but I have a literary interest in semi-archaic words. This is not the time for it, but the day will come when we could look forward to, in this case say, statistics on the current usage and also the archaic usage—or at least the statistics for the noun and separate ones for the verb. So mote it be! Sep 13, 2009
manilamac Sorry, but I have a literary interest in semi-archaic words. This is not the time for it, but the day will come when we could look forward to, in this case say, statistics on the current usage and also the archaic usage—or at least the statistics for the noun and separate ones for the verb. So mote it be! Sep 13, 2009
wytukaze Citation at uncleft. Nov 13, 2008
oroboros "Fie! Fie! Ye visionary things,
Ye motes that dance in sunny glow,
Who base and build eternities
On briefest moment here below."
The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi, Richard F. Burton, translation
Jan 29, 2007