emmet

English

Etymology

Middle English emete, from Old English æmete, (bef. 12c) Cognate to ant.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈɛmɪt/

  Rhymes: -ɛmɪt

Noun

emmet (plural emmets)

1. (archaic) An ant
   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York Review of Books, 2001, p. 47:

     He told him that he saw a vast multitude and a promiscuous, their habitations like molehills, the men as emmets [...].

   • 1789, William Blake, Songs of Innocence:

     Once a dream did weave a shade / O'er my angel-guarded bed / That an emmet lost its way / Where on grass methought I lay.

   • 1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion, IV.430:

     [A benignity that] to the emmet gives / Her foresight, and intelligence that makes / The tiny creatures strong by social league.

   • 1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford:

     We are scurrying emmets or pismires with our sad little comedies.

2. (Cornish, pejorative) A tourist