mite

«mite» in Mova's school dictionary: A tiny animal with eight legs, related to spiders, often… — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 3 sentences of Mova's corpora that use it.

part of speech

noun (a mite, mites); adverb («a mite» — informal, old-fashioned: a little)

meaning for a pupil

1) A tiny animal with eight legs, related to spiders, often too small to see: dust mites. tree →

2) A small child or small creature that you feel sorry for: the poor little mite. tree →

3) (informal, «a mite») A little bit, slightly: a mite cold. tree →

4) (old) A very small coin or amount. tree →

sense in the lessons

In science mites are arachnids (eight legs), not insects; dust mites live in beds and carpets and can cause allergies. In UK and Irish everyday talk «the poor little mite» shows kindness to a small child. In counting problems a mite has 8 legs.

examples

• Dust mites live in our pillows. tree →
• A mite has eight legs, like a spider. tree →
• Red mites can bite chickens. tree →
• The poor little mite was soaked in the rain. tree →
• It's a mite chilly this morning. tree →
• Under the microscope we saw a mite crawling on a leaf. tree →
• 5 mites have 5 × 8 = 40 legs. tree →
• There he would find better fare than briny water and sand mites. tree →

note

Homophone: might (could; strength). Mites are not insects (insects have 6 legs). «A mite» meaning «a little» is old-fashioned.

In the corpora

• Tiny harmless mites live in the roots of the eyelashes of most adults.
• A tiny mite in California covers about 300 body lengths a second, more than any other animal measured.
• Spiders are arachnids, together with scorpions, ticks and mites.

Trees and pragmatics

Every meaning and example of «mite» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.