a mite | Idiomator

Meaning: (informal,idiomatic)To asmallextent; in a smallamount;rather.Synonyms:a bit,a little,a little bit,a tad,a smidgenAntonym:a lot[1870],[Frederick William Robinson], “The Young Guardian”, inOwen:—A Waif(Select Library of Fiction), new edition, London:Chapman and Hall,[…],→OCLC, book III (Battle-ground),page117:"I hope Mary has been the best of girls?" / "The bestest little girl, Sir—a mitetoo lively, perhaps, especially when she hears you're coming to see her,[…].["]1956,Janice Holt Giles, chapter 8, inHannah Fowler, Boston, Mass.:Houghton Mifflin,→OCLC; republished Lexington, Ky.:University Press of Kentucky,1992,→ISBN,page69:"Silas, now," Esther Whitley had said, "would be a good one for you, Hannah. He'sa miteon the old side, but he's steady, an' he's been wed before. He knows the ways of a woman better'n some."1959, Frances Cavanah,Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance, Chicago, Ill.:Rand McNally,→OCLC;Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance(ReadHowYouWant Classics Library), EasyRead large edition, U.S.A.: ReadHowYouWant,2008,→ISBN,page30:Those trousers area mitetoo big, but you'll soon grow into them.2018November 29,Brian Taylor, “Brexit and sellers of fish”, inBBC News‎[1], archived fromthe originalon26 June 2019:Words, words, words, bemoans Hamlet, in conversation with the garrulous but inconsequential Polonius, whom he labels a "seller of fish". Given that the Prince of Denmark is himself legendary for vacillation and inaction, this always seemeda mitecheeky to me.2022October 4, Jason Zinoman, “The ’90s Cartoon That Mattered? ‘Beavis and Butt-Head.’ (Fight Me.)”, inThe New York Times‎[2],→ISSN:The new show’s look isa miteslicker and the comic situations are set up and executed better, including Episode 1 in which Beavis and Butt-Head mistake an escape room’s bathroom for the place they need to escape.2023May 13, John Naughton, “A moment’s silence, please, for the death of Mark Zuckerberg’s metaverse”, inThe Observer‎[3],→ISSN:In those circumstances, you’d have thought someone who had just blown $36bn of his company’s money in the pursuit of a personal obsession would have beena miteapologetic, wouldn’t you?

Examples:

EN: Not a mite more than I ought, ma'am.
ES: Ni más ni menos de lo que debo, señora.
EN: It's just a mite of talk.
ES: Son sólo habladurías.
EN: Perking up a mite.
ES: Se siente algo mejor.
EN: It's a mite near a mile here.
ES: Son casi dos kilómetros.
EN: I feel just a mite as though I'd have a little dyspepsia tonight.
ES: Me parece que esta noche voy a tener un poco de dispepsia.
EN: -Could you spare a mite of that grub?
ES: - ¿Podemos comer de esa carne?
EN: Here's a mite for the widow. Who's next?
ES: Una colecta para la viuda.
EN: It's a mite on handy, but the Indians can't sneak up on you from behind.
ES: Es un poco incómodo, pero al menos los indios no te atacarán por la espalda.
EN: I'll change places with you for a spell. You seem a mite too eager to get to California the first day.
ES: Cámbieme el sitio, parecen ansiosos por llegar en un día.
EN: Unless you got one in the wagon, I think you should be a mite hungry. Thank you, but I'm dining with Captain Fremont.
ES: No ha encendido ningún fuego y supuse que tendría hambre.
EN: You look a mite tired right now, ma'am. I hope you're joking, Carson.
ES: Iré a la cama cuando crea conveniente.
EN: I haven't practiced in nigh unto 20 years... not since I took over the Gazette, and I may be a mite rusty.
ES: Hace 20 años que no ejerzo... desde que asumí la dirección de la Gaceta... y quizá lo tenga muy olvidado.
EN: We could do with a mite.
ES: - Nos conformamos con poco.
EN: # Scared as a rabbit small as a mite #
ES: Asustada como un conejo, pequeña como una termita
EN: Take things a mite easier.
ES: Que se tome las cosas con más calma.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).