mote

• (General American) IPA^(key): /moʊt/
• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /məʊt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• Rhymes: -əʊt
• Homophone: moat

From Middle English mot, from Old English mot (“grain of sand; mote; atom”), but of uncertain ultimate origin. Sometimes linked to Spanish mota (“speck”) and English mud.^[1]

Compare West Frisian mot (“peat dust”), Dutch mot (“dust from turf; sawdust; grit”), Norwegian mutt (“speck; mote; splinter; chip”).

mote (plural motes)

1. A small particle; a speck.
   • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Matthew 7:5:

     Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.

   • a. 1729, Edward Taylor, Meditation. Joh. 14.2. I go to prepare a place for you:

     What shall a Mote up to a Monarch rise?
     An Emmet match an Emperor in might?

   • 1979, J.G. Ballard, The Unlimited Dream Company, chapter 9:

     I wanted to shrink myself to a mote of dust, plunge into this pool I held in my own cyclopean hands, soar down these runs of light to places where light itself was born from this colloquy of dust.

• See Thesaurus:modicum

• floater

From Middle English moten, from Old English mōtan (“to be allowed, be able to, have the opportunity to, be compelled to, may, must”), from Proto-Germanic *mōtaną (“to be able to, have to, be delegated”), from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“to acquire, possess, be in charge of”). Cognate with Dutch moeten (“to have to, must”), German müssen (“to have to, must”), Ancient Greek μέδω (médō, “to prevail, dominate, rule over”). Related to empty.

mote (third-person singular simple present mote, no present participle, simple past and past participle must)

1. (archaic) May or might. [from 9th c.]
   • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     he […] kept aloofe for dread to be descryde, / Untill fit time and place he mote espy, / Where he mote worke him scath and villeny.

2. (obsolete) Must. [9th–17th c.]
3. (archaic) Forming subjunctive expressions of wish: may. [from 9th c.]
   • 1980, Erica Jong, Fanny:

     ‘I shall not take Vengeance into my own Hands. The Goddess will do what She will.’ ‘So mote it be,’ said the Grandmaster.

• Generally takes an infinitive without to.

• so mote it be

See moot (“a meeting”).

mote (plural motes)

1. (obsolete) A meeting for discussion.

   a wardmote in the city of London

2. (obsolete) A body of persons who meet for discussion, especially about the management of affairs.

   a folk mote

3. (obsolete) A place of meeting for discussion.

• folk-mote
• mote bell
• shire-mote

From remote, with allusion to the other sense of mote (“a speck of dust”).

mote (plural motes)

1. A tiny computer for remote sensing; a component element of smartdust.

• -tome, Tome, tome

From Proto-Samic *moδē.

This entry needs pronunciation information. If you are familiar with the IPA then please add some!

mote

1. mud

• mote in Marja-Liisa Olthuis, Taarna Valtonen, Miina Seurujärvi and Trond Trosterud (2015–2022) Nettidigisäänih Anarâškiela-suomakielâ-anarâškielâ sänikirje‎^[1], Tromsø: UiT

• Koponen, Eino, Ruppel, Klaas, Aapala, Kirsti, editors (2002–2008), Álgu database: Etymological database of the Saami languages‎^[2], Helsinki: Research Institute for the Languages of Finland

mote f pl

1. plural of mota

• Temo, temo

mote

1. Rōmaji transcription of もて

mōte

1. vocative masculine singular of mōtus

Borrowed from Old French mote and Medieval Latin mota.

• mot

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɔːt(ə)/

mote (plural motes)

1. A natural or man-made mound; hill

• ⇒ Yola: mothee

• “mōte, n.¹”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

mote

1. inflection of moten (“to have to”):
   1. present subjunctive singular
   2. present indicative/subjunctive plural

Norwegian Wikipedia has an article on:

mote

Wikipedia ^no

From French mode. Compare mode.

mote m (definite singular moten, indefinite plural moter, definite plural motene)

1. fashion

• motebevisst
• motehus
• moteshow
• moteverden

• “mote” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk Wikipedia has an article on:

mote

Wikipedia ⁿⁿ

From French mode.

mote m (definite singular moten, indefinite plural motar, definite plural motane)

1. fashion

• motebevisst
• motehus
• moteshow
• motemedveten, motemedviten

• “mote” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

mōst

1. singular present subjunctive of mōtan

From Provençal mot or French mot (“word”); see also Italian motto (“word”).

• Rhymes: (Brazil) -ɔt͡ʃi, (Portugal) -ɔtɨ
• Hyphenation: mo‧te

mote m (plural motes)

1. motto

• “mote”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2024
• “mote”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2024

• IPA^(key): /ˈmote/ [ˈmo.t̪e]

• Audio (Spain):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ote
• Syllabification: mo‧te

Borrowed from French mot (“word, saying”) or Occitan mot.

mote m (plural motes)

1. nickname
2. motto (heraldry)

Borrowed from Quechua mut'i.

mote m (plural motes)

1. (South America) hulled cereal, especially pearl barley and hominy

• “mote”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.7, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2023 November 28

mote

1. dative singular of mot