emmet

From Middle English emete, from Old English ǣmete, (bef. 12c) Doublet of ant.

• IPA^(key): /ˈɛmɪt/
• Rhymes: -ɛmɪt

emmet (plural emmets)

1. (dialectal or archaic) An ant.
   • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: […] John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:
     , 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 […]

   • 1666, Dr. Edmund King, Philosophical Transactions (1665-1678) Observations Concerning Emmets or Ants, Their Eggs, Production, Progress, Coming to Maturity, Use, &c
   • before 1729, Edward Taylor, "Meditation. Joh. 14.2. I go to prepare a place for you":

     What shall a Mote up to a Monarch rise?

     An Emmet match an Emperor in might?

   • 1789, William Blake, “A Dream”, in 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. (Cornwall, derogatory) A tourist.

• four-legged emmet

• anty-mire
• grockle

• Temme

emmet

1. partitive singular of emme