Word of the Day: Might and Mite

might   might  /  mīt   noun (no plural)  

1. superior power or force

Neither the military might nor the economic and technological development makes a nation great. Pandurang Shastri Athavale, 1920 – 2003  

2. physical strength

Whatever you do, do with all your might. Latin Proverb   verb  

1. past tense of may

For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, ‘It might have been’. John Greenleaf Whittier, 1807 – 1892     mite   mite  /  mīt   noun  

1. a small or tiny spider or tick of the order Acarina, some species are parasitic and often carry disease and others damage crops or stored food

Because of the varroa mite, wild honey bees are now, for all practical purposes, extinct in the United States. From “The Beekeeper’s Lament: How One Man and Half a Billion Honey Bees Help Feed America” by Hannah Nordhaus, ? –  

2. a small amount of money or donation

Let your heart feel for the afflictions and distresses of every one, and let your hand give in proportion to your purse; remembering always the estimation of the widow’s mite, but, that it is not every one who asketh that deserveth charity; all, however, are worthy of the inquiry, or the deserving may suffer. George Washington, 1732 – 1799  

3. a small amount

Just a little every day That’s the way Children learn to read and write Bit by bit and mite by mite. Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1850 – 1919  

4. a small object, particle, grain, person or thing

Think of the totality of all Being, and what a mite of it is yours; think of all time, and the brief fleeting instant of it that is allotted to yourself; think of Destiny, and how puny a part of it you are. Marcus Aurelius, 121 – 180  

5. a coin of a very small denomination

The widow who paid in the two mites was poorer than any human, but she outdid them all. Saint John Chrysostom, 347 – 407