Other forms: motes
A mote is a tiny speck of dust in the air. A mote of dust, motes in the sunbeam, the smallest mote.
It is literary and it is fixed in English by the biblical mote in your brother's eye, meaning a small fault noticed while ignoring a large one of your own. Motes are visible in a sunbeam because the light scatters off them sideways. Note that the Old English word meant a grain of sand.
1nounmoteA tiny speck of dust in the air.
“Tiny motes floated in the still air of the old library.”
mote is a speck.
Old English mot means a speck or grain of sand. Its origin beyond that is uncertain.
Proto-West Germanic
*mot — grain of dirt or sand, speck
Old English
mot — grain of sand; mote; atom
Middle English
mot
English, today
mote
From Middle English mot, from Old English mot (“grain of sand; mote; atom”), from Proto-West Germanic mot (“grain of dirt or sand, speck”). Perhaps linked to English mud. Compare West Frisian mot (“peat dust”), Dutch mot (“dust from turf; sawdust; grit”), Low German mut (“peat dust, grit”), Norwegian mutt (“speck; mote; splinter; chip”), Italian mota (“mud”), Spanish mota (“speck”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA