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