mote
/məʊt
/noun
A tiny piece of a substance; a speck: the tiniest mote of dust...
- A beam of light had broken through the canopy and caught the motes of dust and tiny midges floating around in the golden light.
- But a Leonid meteor is tiny, a supersonic mote of dust.
- Tiny water droplets are borne on the air like dust motes, sparkling in the glare from the banks of fluorescent lights in the canopy above the petrol pumps.
Synonyms
speck, particle, grain, spot, fleck, atom, scintilla, mite
Phrases
a mote in someone's eye
Origin
Old English mot, related to Dutch mot 'dust, sawdust'.