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there's not an iota of doubt regarding the defendant's guilt
These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'iota.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
The words iota and jot share a lot more than just a common meaning—both ultimately derive from the same word. When Latin scholars transcribed the Greek name of the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet, they spelled it as either iota or jota (the letters i and j were simply variants of each other), and these spellings eventually passed into English as iota and jot. Since the Greek letter iota is the smallest letter of its alphabet, both words eventually came to be used in reference to very small things.
First Known Use: 1542
in the meaning defined at sense 1
See Words from the same yearbeans, continental, darn (also durn), fig, hoot, jot, lick, modicum, rap, syllable, tittle, whit, whoop;
ace, bit, crumb, dab, driblet, glimmer, hint, little, mite, nip, ounce, particle, peanuts, pin, ray, scrap, scruple, semblance, shade, shadow, shred, smidgen (also smidgeon), speck, spot, sprinkling, strain, streak, suspicion, touch, trace;
See words that rhyme with iota Thesaurus: All synonyms and antonyms for iota Spanish Central: Translation of iota Nglish: Translation of iota for Spanish speakers
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