DictionaryAI

mote

SayMOHTUS/moʊt/UK/məʊt/

Pluralmotes

Verbmote, must

6 meanings of mote

Practice

  1. 1
    dust specknounliterarycountable
    A very small particle, especially of floating dust; a speck.

    Sunlight revealed countless motes hanging in the still afternoon air.

    He brushed a single mote from the varnished surface of the painting.

    UsageMost often with dust: a mote of dust, dust motes.

    Similarspeck, particle, fleck, grain

    Note

    The speck behind one of the best-known images in the King James Bible of 1611: the mote in a brother's eye set against the beam in one's own. J.G. Ballard's narrator in The Unlimited Dream Company (1979) longs "to shrink myself to a mote of dust," which shows the word is still a writer's choice.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 4 facts

    • The King James Bible was first published in 1611. en.wikipedia.org
    • The Bible contrasts a mote in a brother's eye with a beam in one's own. en.wikisource.org
    • J. G. Ballard wrote The Unlimited Dream Company, first published in 1979. en.wikipedia.org
    • The quotation expresses the narrator's wish and reproduces the wording accurately. en.wiktionary.org
  2. 2
    tiny computernouncountable
    A tiny computer used for remote sensing, forming one element of smartdust.

    A single mote can monitor temperature, light, and motion before relaying the readings.

    Researchers deployed thousands of motes to map air quality across the city.

    Note

    A coinage built on a pun: the word clips remote, as in remote sensing, while nodding to the speck of dust. The joke suits the design, since these devices are small enough to be thought of as dust, each one a node in a smartdust network.

    Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts

  3. 3
    verbarchaic
    May or might, expressing possibility, permission, or a wish, as in 'so mote it be'.
    Note

    A modal Spenser could still use in Book VI of The Faerie Queene (1596), where a lurking figure waits until "fit time and place he mote espy." It comes from Old English mōtan, which covered being allowed, being able and being compelled. Its past form is must, so the modern word grew from the same verb.

Less common meanings

  1. 4
    verbobsolete
    Must, expressing necessity or obligation.
    Note

    Here the old verb points toward compulsion, the other half of what Old English mōtan could mean. Modern English kept this meaning through the past form, must, while mote itself fell out of use. In older texts, context is the only way to tell this reading from the "may" meaning, because the two are spelled exactly alike.

    Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 4 facts

    • Old English mōtan could express compulsion. en.wiktionary.org
    • Must developed from the old verb's past tense. en.wiktionary.org
    • Must took over the obligation function as mote disappeared from ordinary use. en.wikipedia.org
    • The permission and obligation senses share the spelling mote, so their interpretation depends on context. en.wiktionary.org
  2. 5
    nounobsolete
    A meeting or assembly of people gathered to discuss and settle matters.
    Note

    A different word from the speck and the modal: this mote is moot, the old word for a meeting, in another spelling. On its own it is obsolete, but it lives on inside compounds such as wardmote, the meeting of a ward in the City of London. When you meet it in historical writing, read it as "moot."

  3. 6
    nounobsolete
    A place where people met for discussion.

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Origins

Meaning 1

Proto-West Germanic *mot ("a speck or grain of dirt or sand") became Old English mot ("atom, mote, grain of sand") and then Middle English mot. It may be linked to English mud. Comparable words include West Frisian mot ("peat dust") and Italian mota ("mud").

Meanings 3–4

*med-, a Proto-Indo-European root meaning "to acquire, possess, be in charge of," is probably the source of Proto-Germanic *mōtaną. This became Old English mōtan ("may, must, be allowed, be able to") and then Middle English moten. Dutch moeten and German müssen ("must") are cognates.

Meanings 5–6

A form of moot, "a meeting," from Old English gemot.

Meaning 2

This word is remote with its first syllable dropped, and it plays on the other mote, "a speck of dust."