jot

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See also: Jot and jót

English[edit]

Etymology[edit]

From Latin iōta, from Ancient Greek ἰῶτα (iôta).

Pronunciation[edit]

Noun[edit]

jot (plural jots)

  1. Iota; the smallest letter or stroke of any writing.
    • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Matthew 5:18,[1]
      Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
    • 1904, Bliss Carman, “Christmas Eve at St. Kavin’s” in Pipes of Pan: Songs from a Northern Garden, Boston: L.C. Page, p. 107,[2]
      Of old, men said, “Sin not;
      By every line and jot
      Ye shall abide; man’s heart is false and vile.”
  2. A small amount, bit; the smallest amount.
    He didn't care a jot for his work.
    • c. 1607, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act II, Scene 2,[3]
      Sir, the people
      Must have their voices; neither will they bate
      One jot of ceremony.
    • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, 3rd edition, p. 159,[4]
      After this I spent a great deal of Time and Pains to make me an Umbrella; I was indeed in great want of one, and had a great mind to make one; I had seen them made in the Brasils, where they are very useful in the great Heats which are there: And I felt the Heats every jot as great here, and greater too, being nearer the Equinox […]
    • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter 8,[5]
      “If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside,” cried Bingley, “it would not make them one jot less agreeable.”
    • 1903, George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act I,[6]
      […] the artist’s work is to show us ourselves as we really are. Our minds are nothing but this knowledge of ourselves; and he who adds a jot to such knowledge creates new mind as surely as any woman creates new men.
    • 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Chapter 8,[7]
      “What does that matter? Arsenic would put poor Emily out of the way just as well as strychnine. If I’m convinced he did it, it doesn’t matter a jot to me how he did it.”
  3. (obsolete) Moment, instant.
    • 1595, Edmund Spencer, Amoretti in Kenneth J. Larson (ed.), Amoretti and Epithalamion: A Critical Edition, Tempe, AZ: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1997, Sonnet LVII, p. 91,[8]
      So weake my powres, so sore my wounds appeare,
      that wonder is how I should liue a iot,
      seeing my hart through launched euery where
      with thousand arrowes, which your eies haue shot:
    • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene 2,[9]
      No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.
    • 1728, Lewis Theobald, Double Falshood: or, the Distrest Lovers, London: J. Watts, Act I, Scene 1, p. 12,[10]
      Making my Death familiar to my Tongue
      Digs not my Grave one Jot before the Date.
  4. A brief and hurriedly written note.
    • 1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book II, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 53:
      "I say, it is no uneven jot, to pass from the more faint and obscure examples of Spermatical life to the more considerable effects of general Motion in Minerals, Metalls, and sundry Meteors ..."
    • 1920, Robert Nichols, “Sonnets to Aurelia, IV” in Aurelia and Other Poems, London: Chatto & Windus, p. 29,[11]
      “Lover,” you say; “how beautiful that is,
      That little word!” […]
      Yes, it is beautiful. I have marked it long,
      Long in my dusty head its jot secreted,
      Yet my heart never knew this word a song
      Till in the night softly by you repeated.

See also[edit]

Synonyms[edit]

Translations[edit]

Derived terms[edit]

Verb[edit]

jot (third-person singular simple present jots, present participle jotting, simple past and past participle jotted)

  1. (usually with "down") To write quickly.
    Tell me your order, so I can jot it down.

Derived terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

Anagrams[edit]

Central Franconian[edit]

Alternative forms[edit]

  • got (northern Moselle Franconian)
  • gut (southern Moselle Franconian)

Etymology[edit]

From Old High German (*)guod, northern variant of guot.

Pronunciation[edit]

Adjective[edit]

jot (masculine jode, feminine jot, comparative besser, superlative et beste)

  1. (Ripuarian) good
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