See also: Emmet

English edit

Etymology edit

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

Pronunciation edit

Noun edit

emmet (plural emmets)

  1. (dialectal or archaic) An ant.
    • 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: [], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by 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.

See also edit

Anagrams edit

Estonian edit

Noun edit

emmet

  1. partitive singular of emme