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Speck vs Mite - What's the difference?

speck | mite | Related terms |

As nouns the difference between speck and mite

is that speck is a tiny spot, especially of dirt etc while mite is a minute arachnid, of the order Acarina, of which there are many species; as, the cheese mite, sugar mite, harvest mite, etc. See Acarina.

As a verb speck

is to mark with specks; to speckle.

speck

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) .

Noun

(en noun)
  • (countable) A tiny spot, especially of dirt etc.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
    • , title= Out of the gloom , passage=[Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.}}
  • (uncountable) A juniper-flavoured ham originally from Tyrol.
  • A very small thing; a particle; a whit.
  • * (Walter Savage Landor), quoted in 1971, Ernest Dilworth, Walter Savage Landor , Twayne Publishers, page 88,
    • Onward, and many bright specks bubble up along the blue Aegean; islands, every one of which, if the songs and stories of the pilots are true, is the monument of a greater man than I am.
  • A small etheostomoid fish, , common in the eastern United States.
    • Synonyms
    * (small thing) See also .

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To mark with specks; to speckle.
    • paper specked by impurities in the water used in its manufacture
  • * 1667 , '', 1991, Stephen Orgel, ?Jonathan Goldberg (editors), ''The Major Works , 2003, paperback, page 534,
    • Each flower of slender stalk, whose head though gay / Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold, / Hung drooping unsustained,

    Etymology 2

    Noun

    (-)
  • The blubber of whales or other marine mammals.
  • The fat of the hippopotamus.

    • Anagrams

    *

    mite

    English

    (wikipedia mite)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A minute arachnid, of the order Acarina, of which there are many species; as, the cheese mite, sugar mite, harvest mite, etc. See Acarina.
  • A small coin formerly circulated in England, rated at about a third of a farthing.
  • *1803 , William Blake,
  • *:One mite wrung from the lab'rer's hands
  • *:Shall buy and sell the miser's lands;
  • A lepton, a small coin used in Palestine in the time of Christ.
  • A small weight; one twentieth of a grain.
  • Anything very small; a minute object; a very little quantity or particle. Sometimes used adverbially.
  • * , chapter=5
    • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=“Well,” I says, “I cal'late a body could get used to Tophet if he stayed there long enough.” ¶ She flared up; the least mite of a slam at Doctor Wool was enough to set her going.}}
  • * 1959 , Frances Cavanah, Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance , Project Gutenberg, [http://www.gutenberg.org/files/17315/17315-8.txt]:
    • "Those trousers are a mite too big, but you'll soon grow into them."

    Synonyms

    * (small amount) see also .

    Derived terms

    * widow's mite

    Anagrams

    * * * ----