Word.ws English Dictionary

mite

UK/maɪt/

mite noun: any of many minute arachnids which, along with the ticks, comprise subclass Acari (syn. Acarina). Also the eye dialect spelling of might.

mite: any of many minute arachnids which, along with the ticks, comprise subclass Acari (syn. Acarina)
Image: Photo by Eric Erbe; digital colorization by Chris Pooley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

mite (plural mites)

  1. Any of many minute arachnids which, along with the ticks, comprise subclass Acari (syn. Acarina).
  2. A small coin formerly circulated in England, rated at about a third of a farthing.
    • One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
      Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;1803, William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
  3. A lepton, a small coin used in Judea in the time of Christ.
  4. A small weight; one twentieth of a grain.
  5. (adverbial, sometimes) Anything very small; a minute object; a very little quantity or particle.
    • a mite
    • 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.1903 March 17, Mark Twain, letter to Helen Keller
  6. (colloquial, often) A small or naughty person, or one people take pity on; rascal.
    • 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.j1971, Gwen White, Antique Toys And Their Background, page 35
    • “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.2014, Lorraine F Elli, The Little Town Mouse

Proper noun capitalized: Mite

Mite

  1. A minor river in Cumbria, England, which joins the Cumbrian Esk and River Irt near Ravenglass.

Also used as

mite is also the eye dialect spelling of might.

mite meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Urdu and Bengali

mite in Hindi

माइट

mite in Marathi

माइट करण्यासाठी

mite in Urdu

مائٹ

mite in Bengali

মাইট, মাইট করার জন্য, মাইট করতে
More languagesFewer languages
mite in Telugu
మైట్
mite in Malayalam
മൈറ്റ്, മൈറ്റ് ചെയ്യാൻ
mite in Kannada
ಮೈಟ್ ಮಾಡಲು
mite in Punjabi
ਮਾਈਟ
mite in Gujarati
માઇટ
mite in Odia
ମାଇଟ, ମାଇଟ୍, ମାଇଟ କରିବା ପାଇଁ
mite in Assamese
চাহী sahi
mite in Nepali
माइटे, माइट गर्न, माइट गर्नका लागि
mite in Pashto
خمنډک ډوله ژوي xamanḍák ḍolá žoy
mite in Tagalog
kagaw
mite in Arabic
سُوسَة sūsa
mite in Indonesian
tungau
mite in Persian
هیره hire, پشیز pašiz
mite in Vietnamese
bét, ve
mite in Myanmar
ရွ rwa.

Examples of mite in a sentence

  • "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.1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter V, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
  • He's a mite on the old side, but he's steady, an' he's been wed before.1956, Janice Holt Giles, chapter 8, in Hannah Fowler, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin, →OCLC; republished Lexington, Ky.: University Press...
  • Those trousers are a mite too big, but you'll soon grow into them.1959, Frances Cavanah, Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance, Chicago, Ill.: Rand McNally, →OCLC; Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance (ReadHowYouWant...

All 33 example sentences with mite

Synonyms of mite

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of mite

Forms of mite

pluralmites

Plural of mite: mites

Origin of mite

From Middle English mite, from Old English mīte (“mite, tiny insect”), from Proto-West Germanic *mītā, from Proto-Germanic *mītǭ (“biting insect”, literally “cutter”), from *maitaną (“to cut”), from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“small”) or *meh₂y- (“to cut”). Akin to Old High German mīza (“mite”), Middle Dutch mīte (“moth, mite”), Dutch mijt (“moth, mite”), Danish mide (“mite”).

Words formed from mite

Phrases with mite

Words that rhyme with mite

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about mite

What does mite mean?
Mite means any of many minute arachnids which, along with the ticks, comprise subclass Acari (syn. Acarina).
What is mite in Hindi?
Mite in Hindi is माइट. See Mite meaning in Hindi.
How do you use mite in a sentence?
"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.
What part of speech is mite?
Mite can be a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce mite?
Mite is pronounced /maɪt/ (UK).
What is the plural of mite?
The plural of mite is mites.

Words near mite in the dictionary

  1. Mitchner
  2. Mitchners
  3. Mitchum
  4. Mitchumesque
  5. Mitchums
  6. mite
  7. mite box
  8. mite boxes
  9. mite cheese
  10. Miteipur
  11. Mitempfindung

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: mite (page history and authors); Mite (page history and authors); mite (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mite (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mite (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mite (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mite (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mite (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mite (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mite (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mite (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mite (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); mite (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). 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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-might.ogg.

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