as in specks
a very small piece
there's not a mote of dirt in that woman's house
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of motes
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
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
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One released a chaff cascade—hell’s own monsoon manifesting as specks of light, sound, and EM pulses falling through the hanging garden.
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Kansas City isn't much of a pedestrian city, but now, blue and green specks of fans dot the sidewalks, like wildflowers poking through a crack in the pavement.
Noun
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It should be finely milled, meaning it's blended to lightweight particles that move easily yet set the skin well.
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The storm built until the walls and floor were covered with pale gray particles, billowing like smoke, then tessellating in triangles.
Noun
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Light streams through the frosted glass, catching flecks of dust.
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But flecks of green were visible throughout the stadium as Algeria fans made their presence known as well.
Noun
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Add shortening and continue cutting in until flour is pale yellow and resembles coarse cornmeal with butter bits no larger than small peas.
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The Spanish architect Marina Otero Verzier highlights efforts to preserve the entire island nation of Tuvalu as a series of digital bits.
Noun
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Take the grains of truth in the rumors and gossip.
-
Here, some of our favorite projects that show how a shipping container can serve as the small grains for a sustainable, eco-friendly dream home—from multi-resident container buildings to a DIY tiny house in the middle of the mountains.
Noun
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Boy and Girl Scout troops can also work with Sticky Fingers to earn cooking and baking patches.
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People taking diuretics, beta-blockers or any transdermal medication patches should check with a doctor first since heat significantly increases drug absorption through the skin.
Noun
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But Brown’s team identified a cluster of four clusters—the megacluster—that produces not just one, but four molecules that work in different ways to trip up the biotin pathway.
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The new device is made up of 16 small gas-detecting sensors that identify slight variations in gas molecules including those of common food allergens like walnuts and peanuts that could be life-threatening for those with allergies.
Noun
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Being joyful there — in the Dominican Republic, where small shacks and houses pieced together by junkyard scraps sometimes hold families with over a dozen members — seems incomprehensible.
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There’s passable yet indistinguishable music in this exact style dropping every day, but the difference with Chicago’s Fatso is that his lyrics feel like scraps of conversations that communicate his hurt without leaning on platitudes.
Cite this Entry
“Motes.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/motes. Accessed 27 Jun. 2026.
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