MOTES Synonyms: 99 Similar and Opposite Words

motes

noun

plural of mote

as in specks

a very small piece there's not a mote of dirt in that woman's house

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Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Recent Examples of motes After maybe 10,000 individual motes of noise that chatter like mouse clicks, the song ends with a slow, jangly fadeout. — Kieran Press-Reynolds, Pitchfork, 26 Oct. 2026 Tiny bugs float in the sun like dust motes, and there are graceful flies large enough to require a runway landing. — John Metcalfe, Mercury News, 4 May 2026 Sunbeams through the windows illuminate floating dust motes—and, imperceptibly, microdroplets of mucus carrying the measles virus, expelled from an infected but asymptomatic child who is hopping and laughing among the others. — Elizabeth Bruenig, The Atlantic, 12 Feb. 2026 Easily swept up by wind and carried long distances by water, these tiny motes are also exceedingly difficult to detect and almost impossible to remove from the environment. — K. R. Callaway, Scientific American, 22 Jan. 2026 There’s a Gambit-adjacent one that has players depositing motes while killing other teams. — Paul Tassi, Forbes.com, 30 Aug. 2025 The sensors’ small size allows seamless integration into almost any environment, while the wireless, modular design lets motes be added or removed as needed depending on the application. — Georgina Jedikovska, Interesting Engineering, 6 Aug. 2025 Powering and recording signals from multiple motes will require new techniques and better signal processing. — Eliza Strickland, IEEE Spectrum, 21 Oct. 2016

Recent Examples of Synonyms for motes

Noun

The source was generally in good condition, but mold spots and dense clusters of small white specks required careful treatment.

— Lin Ying-Hsuan, Variety, 13 Oct. 2026
Breakouts can look like milder, painless white bumps or dark specks known as whiteheads and blackheads, or more painful red bumps and deeper cysts — a mark of cystic acne.

— Adithi Ramakrishnan, Los Angeles Times, 13 Oct. 2026

Definition of specks

Noun

The oversized jacket featured a furry white base adorned with flecks of silver, which beautifully mirrored the sumptuous coats on the runway.

— Chanel Vargas, InStyle, 25 Sep. 2026
Add the torn basil and process just until incorporated -- there will be flecks of green in the mixture.

— ABC News, ABC News, 19 Sep. 2026

Definition of flecks

Noun

The crash, which occurred in a flat stretch surrounded by olive fields in between the towns of Urda and Los Yébenes, left carriages shredded into bits of metal and other material, scattering debris down a gravel slope.

— JOSEPH WILSON, Arkansas Online, 29 Oct. 2026
All of them got here by giant impacts that have pelted Mars for eons, occasionally blasting bits of the planet into space, some of which by chance fall to Earth.

— Mary Randolph, Scientific American, 29 Oct. 2026

Definition of bits

Noun

Whole-body therapies, which come in pills, patches, sprays, gels and a vaginal ring, deliver doses of hormones into the bloodstream at levels high enough to have significant effects on symptoms like hot flashes.

— Laura Ungar, Los Angeles Times, 3 Nov. 2026
During the previous internal sprint, engineers used Codex to investigate findings, reproduce vulnerabilities in isolated environments, and prepare patches for review.

— Atharva Gosavi, Interesting Engineering, 3 Nov. 2026

Definition of patches

Noun

Both amyloid beta and tau are normally present in healthy brains; the plaques and tangles are abnormal aggregations of these molecules.

— Manvir Singh, New Yorker, 2 Nov. 2026
Chelation therapy involves the administration of administering specialized chemical agents that attach to the lead molecules in the bird’s blood and form a compound that is expelled, mostly via urine.

— Margherita Bassi, Popular Science, 2 Nov. 2026

Definition of molecules

Noun

There are scraps of industrial, cybergrind, metalcore, and death metal in this stew, as well as a healthy garnish of Godflesh’s machinelike relentlessness, all of it well balanced.

— Sadie Sartini Garner, Pitchfork, 30 Oct. 2026
The patchwork bag is made from the soft leather and suede scraps left over from the creation of Coach bags.

— Jaden Thompson, Footwear News, 21 Oct. 2026

Definition of scraps

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motels

motes

motet

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“Motes.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/motes. Accessed 5 Nov. 2026.

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Synonyms of motes

noun

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