Word.ws English Dictionary

jot

/d͡ʒɒt/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Multicultural London English[d͡ʒɔʔ]

jot noun: the smallest letter or stroke of any writing; an iota.

Noun (1)

jot (plural jots)

  1. The smallest letter or stroke of any writing; an iota.
    • This bond doth giue thee here no iote of blood, / The vvords expreſly are a pound of fleſh: / Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of fleſh, / But in the cutting of it, if thou doſt ſhed / One drop of Chriſtian blood, thy lands and goods / Are by the lavves of Venice, confiſcate / Vnto the State...c. 1596–1598 (date written), W[illiam] Shakespeare, The Excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. […] (First Quarto), [London]: […] J[ames] Roberts [for Thomas Heyes], published 1600, →OCLC, [Act...
    • For verily I ſay vnto you, Till heauen and earth paſſe, one iote or one tittle, ſhall in no wiſe paſſe from the law, till all be fulfilled.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 5:18, column 1
  2. (broadly) A small, or the smallest, amount of a thing; a bit, a whit.
    • He didn’t care a jot for his work.
    • Sir, the People muſt haue their Voiyes, / Neyther vvill they bate / One iot of Ceremonie.c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    1. (broadly, obsolete) An instant, a moment.
      • So vveake my povvres, ſo ſore my vvounds appeare, / that vvonder is hovv I ſhould liue a iot, / ſeeing my hart through launched euery vvhere / vvith thouſand arrovves, vvhich your eies haue ſhot: […]1595, Edmunde Spenser [i.e., Edmund Spenser], “[Amoretti.] Sonnet LVII”, in Amoretti and Epithalamion. […], London: […] [Peter Short] for William Ponsonby, →OCLC, signature [D6], recto
      • No faith, Ile not ſtay a iot longer: […]c. 1601–1602 (date written), William Shakespeare, “Twelfe Night, or What You Will”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
  3. A brief and hurriedly written note.
    • "Lover," you say; "how beautiful that is, / That little word!” […] / Yes, it is beautiful. I have marked it long, / Long in my dusty head its jot secreted, / Yet my heart never knew this word a song / Till in the night softly by you repeated.1920, Robert Nichols, “Sonnets to Aurelia [Sonnet IV]”, in Aurelia & Other Poems, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC, page 29

Verb (1)

jot (third-person singular simple present jots, present participle jotting, simple past and past participle jotted)

  1. (transitive) Chiefly followed by down: to write (something) quickly; to make a brief note of (something).
    • Tell me your order so I can jot it down.
    • He mentions as certain the falsehood of a number of the assertions concerning his usage, the unhealthy state of the island, and so forth. I have jotted down his evidence elsewhere.1827 February 12 (date written), Walter Scott, “[Entry dated 12 February 1827]”, in David Douglas, editor, The Journal of Sir Walter Scott […], volume I, Edinburgh: David Douglas, published 1890...

Verb (2)

jot (third-person singular simple present jots, present participle jotting, simple past and past participle jotted)

  1. (dialectal, transitive, obsolete except UK) To jerk or jolt (something); to jog.
    • Nowe is iuſte iuſtice, ſo iotted out of iointe, / That ye here vniuſtely, ſtande at deniall, / To do me iuſtice, and wolde by power ryall: / Directe mine acquitall or condemnacion, / Euen as wyll in both: weith your acceptacion.1556, John Heywood, chapter 24, in The Spider and the Flie. […], London: […] Tho[mas] Powell, →OCLC; republished as A[dolphus] W[illiam] Ward, editor, The Spider and the Flie. […] (Publications of...
    Synonyms:
    bump

Noun (2)

jot (plural jots)

  1. (obsolete, rare) A jerk, a jolt.
    • [F]requent jot / Of his hard ſetting jade did ſo confound / The vvords that he by papyr-ſtealth had got, / That their loſt ſenſe the youngſter could not ſound, / Though he vvith mimical attention did abound.1640 (date written), H[enry] M[ore], “ΨΥΧΟΖΩΙΑ [Psychozōia], or A Christiano-platonicall Display of Life, […]”, in ΨΥΧΩΔΙΑ [Psychōdia] Platonica: Or A Platonicall Song of the Soul, […], Cambridge...
    • […] I ſay it is no uneven jot, to paſſe from the more faint and obſcure examples of Spermaticall life, to the more conſiderable effects of generall Motion in Mineralls, Metalls & ſundry Meteors, […]1653, Henry More, chapter XII, in An Antidote against Atheisme, or An Appeal to the Natural Faculties of the Minde of Man, whether There Be Not a God, London: […] Roger Daniel, […], →OCLC, book II...
    Synonyms:
    bump

jot meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Malayalam

jot in Tamil

சிற்றளவு, சுருக்கக் குறிப்பெடு, புள்ளியளவு, விரை குறிப்பெடு

jot in Urdu

کنی, نقطہ, ریزہ, تل, ذرہ, سرسری طور پر لکھنا

jot in Bengali

বিন্দু, সামান্য পরিমাণ, অতি ক্ষুদ্র অংশ

jot in Malayalam

കുറിക്കുക, ചുരുക്കമായി കുറിക്കുക, ഓർമ്മക്കുറിപ്പെഴുതുക
More languagesFewer languages
jot in Kannada
ಅಲ್ಪ, ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ, ಇಷ್ಟು, ಕೊಂಚ
jot in Assamese
টোকা tüka
jot in Thai
จด jòt
jot in Vietnamese
chút, tí tẹo, tí teo

Examples of jot in a sentence

  • Of old, men said, "Sin not; / By every line and jot / Ye shall abide; man's heart is false and vile."1904, Bliss Carman, “Christmas Eve at St. Kavin’s”, in Songs from a Northern Garden (Pipes of Pan; no. 4), Boston, Mass.: L[ouis] C[oues]...
  • [T]hough Richard [III] vvas purſued and killed as a uſurper, the Solomon that ſucceeded him [Henry VII of England], vvas not a jot leſs a tyrant.1768, Horace Walpole, “The Murder of His Brother Clarence”, in Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third, London: […]...
  • "If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside," cried Bingley, "it would not make them one jot less agreeable."1813 January 27, [Jane Austen], chapter VIII, in Pride and Prejudice: […], volume I, London: […] [George Sidney] for T[homas] Egerton, […]...
  • Our minds are nothing but this knowledge of ourselves; and he who adds a jot to such knowledge creates new mind as surely as any woman creates new men.1901–1903, [George] Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman. […], Westminster [London]: Archibald Constable & Co., published 1903, →OCLC, Act I...

All 17 example sentences with jot

Synonyms of jot

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of jot

Forms of jot

Noun
pluraljots
Verb
third-person singular presentjots
present participlejotting
past participlejotted
pastjotted

Plural of jot: jots

Origin of jot

The noun is borrowed from Latin iōta (“the letter iota of the Ancient Greek alphabet”), from Ancient Greek ἰῶτα (iôta, “ninth letter of the Ancient Greek alphabet; (figurative) very small part of writing, jot”), from Phoenician 𐤉 (y‬, “tenth letter of the Phoenician abjad, yodh”). Doublet of iota and yodh. Etymology 1, noun sense 3 (“brief and hurriedly written note”) is derived from the verb. The verb is probably borrowed from Scots jot, from English jot (noun): see above.

The verb is possibly onomatopoeic, suggesting a jerking motion. The noun is derived from the verb.

Words formed from jot

Words that rhyme with jot

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about jot

What does jot mean?
Jot means the smallest letter or stroke of any writing; an iota.
What is jot in Tamil?
Jot in Tamil is சிற்றளவு, சுருக்கக் குறிப்பெடு, புள்ளியளவு. See Jot meaning in Tamil.
How do you use jot in a sentence?
Of old, men said, "Sin not; / By every line and jot / Ye shall abide; man's heart is false and vile."
What part of speech is jot?
Jot can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce jot?
Jot is pronounced /d͡ʒɒt/ (UK).
What is the plural of jot?
The plural of jot is jots.

Words near jot in the dictionary

  1. Joswick
  2. Joswicks
  3. Josy
  4. José
  5. joséite
  6. jot
  7. jot and tittle
  8. jot down
  9. jota
  10. jotas
  11. jotated

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: jot (page history and authors); jot (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); jot (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); Jot (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); jot (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); jot (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); টোকা (Assamese) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-jot.wav.

Cite this entry: “jot.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/jot. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.