Word.ws English Dictionary

pismire

/ˈpɪsmaɪə(ɹ)/

pismire noun: an ant.

Noun

pismire (plural pismires)

  1. (archaic, dialectal) An ant.
    • Why looke you, I am whipt and ſcourg'd with rods,
      Netled, and ſtung with piſmires, when I heare
      Of this vile polititian, Bullingbrooke,c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • Much there is not of wonder in the confused Houses of Pismires, though much in their busie life and actions […]1658, Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus, Folio Society, published 2007, page 189

pismire meaning in Tamil

pismire in Tamil

கறையான் உள்ளிட்ட, சமூகமாக வாழும் பூச்சிகள்

Examples of pismire in a sentence

  • We are like the pismires destroyed by the plough; whose destruction prevents not the future crop.1782, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, Letters from an American Farmer:
  • We are scurrying emmets or pismires with our sad little comedies.1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford:

Forms of pismire

pluralpismires

Origin of pismire

From Middle English pissemyre, equivalent to piss + mire (“ant”). So called due to the smell of anthills. Compare English pissant, Old Frisian pisimme, Dutch pismiere, Swedish pissmyra.

Words formed from pismire

Questions about pismire

What does pismire mean?
Pismire means an ant.
What is pismire in Tamil?
Pismire in Tamil is கறையான் உள்ளிட்ட, சமூகமாக வாழும் பூச்சிகள். See Pismire meaning in Tamil.
How do you use pismire in a sentence?
We are like the pismires destroyed by the plough; whose destruction prevents not the future crop.
What part of speech is pismire?
Pismire is a noun.
How do you pronounce pismire?
Pismire is pronounced /ˈpɪsmaɪə(ɹ)/.
What is the plural of pismire?
The plural of pismire is pismires.

Words near pismire in the dictionary

  1. Pisky-Richytski
  2. Pisky-Udaiski
  3. PISL
  4. Pislam
  5. Pislamic
  6. pismire
  7. pismires
  8. pismirism
  9. Pismo
  10. Pismo Beach
  11. PISN

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pismire (page history and authors); pismire (Tamil Wiktionary) (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.

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

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