mite
pronunciation
How to pronounce mite in British English:
UK [maɪt]
How to pronounce mite in American English:
US [maɪt]
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- Noun:
- a slight but appreciable addition
- any of numerous very small to minute arachnids often infesting animals or plants or stored foods
Word Origin
- mite
- mite: English has two words mite, although they probably share a common origin. The older, ‘tiny insect-like creature’ [OE], goes back to a prehistoric Germanic *mītōn, which was probably derived from a base meaning ‘cut’ (hence ‘something cut up small’). Dutch has the related mijt. The original meaning of mite ‘small thing’ [14] was ‘small coin’ (as in the ‘widow’s mite’). It was used in Flanders for such a coin, worth a third of a penny, and Middle Dutch mīte was borrowed into English. It too goes back to a Germanic mītōn, which is probably the same word as produced the animated mite.
- mite (n.1)
- "tiny animal, minute arachnid," Old English mite, from Proto-Germanic *miton (cognates: Middle Dutch mite, Dutch mijt, Old High German miza, Danish mide) originally meaning perhaps "the cutter," in reference to its bite, from Proto-Germanic *mait- (cognates: Gothic maitan, Old High German meizen "to cut"), from PIE root *mai- "to cut" (see maim). Or else its original sense is "something small," and it is from PIE *mei- (2) "small," in reference to size (see minus).
- mite (n.2)
- "little bit," mid-14c., from Middle Dutch or Middle Low German mite "tiny animal," from Proto-Germanic *miton-, from PIE *mei- (2) "small" (see minus), and thus probably identical with mite (n.1). Also the name of a medieval Flemish copper coin of very small value, proverbial in English for "a very small unit of money," hence used since Wyclif to translate Latin minutum from Vulgate in Mark xii:43, itself a translation of Greek lepton. French mite (14c.) is a loan-word from Dutch.
Example
- 1. Old pillows are rich in mite dung and human skin flakes .
- 2. Last year more than 30 % of honeybees died from disease , mainly varroa mite .
- 3. Further , the pesticides used today to reduce the mite infestation not only fail to eradicate the mites but introduce environmental and health concerns .
- 4. One key driving force behind bee destruction in europe and north america has been a type of mite , the varroa destructor pest , which attacks bees and that beekeepers struggle to control , neumann said .
- 5. That makes it a third stronger than the strongest known insect ( the rhinoceros beetle ) , hundreds of times stronger than ants , and just a shade weaker than the world 's strongest animal , a tiny yet tenacious mite known as archegozetes longisetosus .