Mite Meaning
/maɪt/Definition, CEFR level B2, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
nounAny of many minute arachnids which, along with the ticks, comprise subclass Acari (syn. Acarina).
nounA small coin formerly circulated in England, rated at about a third of a farthing.
Sentence Examples
A tick is a hematophagous mite.
Ziri has a spider mite infestation.
CEFR Practice Quiz
The doctor found a tiny ____ on the patient's skin under the microscope.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The small bird looked a ____ lonely sitting all alone on the tall garden fence during the cold and rainy winter afternoon.
Word Origin & History
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”).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;"
— 1803, William Blake, Auguries of Innocence:
"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."
— 1903 March 17, Mark Twain, letter to Helen Keller:
""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."
— 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
""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.""
— 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:
"Those trousers are a mite too big, but you'll soon grow into them."
— 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:
Explore More B2 Vocabulary Words
CEFR Practice Quiz
The doctor found a tiny ____ on the patient's skin under the microscope.
CEFR Practice Quiz (Alternate)
The small bird looked a ____ lonely sitting all alone on the tall garden fence during the cold and rainy winter afternoon.