jots

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...
2. (broadly) A small, or the smallest, amount of a thing; a bit, a whit.
   • He didn’t care a jot for his work.

   Synonyms:

   ace, atom, thought, atomy, aught, bissel, continental, bit, crumb, glimpse

   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
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

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...

   Synonyms:

   bump

See all 7 meanings of jot