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Definition of "mote" []

  • A very small particle; a speck: "Dust motes hung in a slant of sunlight” ( Anne Tyler). (noun)
  • Archaic May; might. (auxiliary-verb)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "mote" in a sentence
  • "We are still trying to use our moral rectitude, but that mote is pretty obvious at present, and the values are, to be honest, quite empty."
  • "And The Egoist is a satire; so much must be allowed; but it is a satire of a singular quality, which tells you nothing of that obvious mote, which is engaged from first to last with that invisible beam."
  • "A mote, that is itself invisible, shall darken the august faculty of sight in a human eye -- the heavens shall be hidden by a wretched atom that dares not show itself -- and the station of a syllable shall cloud the judgment of a council."