Other forms: mites
A mite is a tiny amount, or a very small creature. A mite tired, dust mites, poor little mite.
The creature sense covers thousands of species, and dust mites live in every bed and feed on shed skin — the allergy is to their waste rather than to the animals. A mite as an amount comes from an old coin of tiny value, and poor little mite is affectionate.
1nounmiteA very small creature.
“Under the microscope we could see tiny mites crawling on the leaf.”
2nountinyA tiny amount.
“I'm a mite worried about the drive home in this snow.”
mite is a creature, or an amount.
Old English mite names a tiny insect. The sense of a small amount comes from a Flemish coin of very low value.
Proto-Indo-European
*mey- — small
Proto-Germanic
*mītǭ — biting insect
Proto-West Germanic
*mītā
Old English
mīte — mite, tiny insect
Middle English
mite
English, today
mite
Built from
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”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire