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a mite. In DICTIOUS you will not only get to know all the dictionary meanings for the word
a mite, but we will also tell you about its etymology, its characteristics and you will know how to say
a mite in singular and plural. Everything you need to know about the word
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English
Etymology
From a + mite (“minute arachnid of the order Acarina; anything very small, a minute object, a very little quantity or particle”).
Pronunciation
Adverb
a mite (not comparable)
- (informal) To a small extent; in a small amount; rather.
- Synonyms: a bit, a little, a little bit, a tad, a smidgen
- Antonym: a lot
, , “The Young Guardian”, in Owen:—A Waif (Select Library of Fiction), new edition, London: Chapman and Hall, , →OCLC, book III (Battle-ground), page 117:"I hope Mary has been the best of girls?" / "The bestest little girl, Sir—a mite too lively, perhaps, especially when she hears you're coming to see her, […].["]
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.
2018 November 29, Brian Taylor, “Brexit and sellers of fish”, in BBC News, archived from the original on 26 June 2019:Words, words, words, bemoans Hamlet, in conversation with the garrulous but inconsequential Polonius, whom he labels a "seller of fish". Given that the Prince of Denmark is himself legendary for vacillation and inaction, this always seemed a mite cheeky to me.
2022 October 4, Jason Zinoman, “The ’90s Cartoon That Mattered? ‘Beavis and Butt-Head.’ (Fight Me.)”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:The new show’s look is a mite slicker and the comic situations are set up and executed better, including Episode 1 in which Beavis and Butt-Head mistake an escape room’s bathroom for the place they need to escape.
2023 May 13, John Naughton, “A moment’s silence, please, for the death of Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse”, in The Observer, →ISSN:In those circumstances, you’d have thought someone who had just blown $36bn of his company’s money in the pursuit of a personal obsession would have been a mite apologetic, wouldn’t you?
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