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 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

Calcium shows up as bright white specks on the coronary artery images.

— Hanna Wickes, Kansas City Star, 20 Aug. 2026
Pulse a few times, until crumbs range in size from specks to peas.

— Leah Eskin, Midwest Living, 14 Aug. 2026

Definition of specks

Noun

Some kits include stone-like chips or flecks to scatter over the surface of the wet paint for a realistic effect.

— Karen Brewer Grossman, Southern Living, 8 Sep. 2026
Hundreds of flecks of sequins caught the light as Jenner made her way down the red carpet, glittering from every angle.

— Chanel Vargas, InStyle, 3 Sep. 2026

Definition of flecks

Noun

There were small tables that needed gluing, and there was always clothing to be mended, and, on this day, a lawn chair whose shredded side pieces were being replaced with unmatching but whimsical bits of material.

— Lydia Davis, New Yorker, 10 Sep. 2026
Some of the best bits are when there is no violence at all, said Jo Lawson-Tancred on Artnet.

— Will Barker, TheWeek, 10 Sep. 2026

Definition of bits

Noun

The grains found by the team are calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions (CAIs), which are thought to have formed during the first 200,000 years of the solar system.

— Robert Lea, Space.com, 4 Sep. 2026
Researchers are working to develop perennial versions of common annual grains like wheat, sorghum and rice, but the work is slow.

— ABC News, ABC News, 4 Sep. 2026

Definition of grains

Noun

Each jacket is cleaned, repaired and turned into a bespoke jacket with new patches and other details, or something entirely different, like a bag.

— Samantha Conti, Footwear News, 9 Sep. 2026
This is particularly relevant for open source codebases, such as Chromium, where upstream patches are publicly accessible prior to downstream consumers of the codebase applying the patch.

— Dan Goodin, ArsTechnica, 9 Sep. 2026

Definition of patches

Noun

But the team recovered amino acid variants, molecules that make up proteins, that suggested three bones and two teeth were Denisovan, according to the new studies.

— Katie Hunt, CNN Money, 9 Sep. 2026
The team at Rainmaker says drones are the most precise and cost-effective way of cloud seeding, a process that uses molecules of silver iodide to attract water droplets and enhance the amount rain and snow that falls.

— Daniel Manzo, ABC News, 9 Sep. 2026

Definition of molecules

Noun

Alcaraz sensed the dip and sent him running east and west along the baseline, breaking him for the first time since late in the first set by outlasting him on one of those corner-to-corner scraps.

— Matthew Futterman, New York Times, 9 Sep. 2026
Historically, retail investors got IPO scraps as companies focused on getting shares into the hands of patient institutions, but that’s changing.

— Liz Hoffman, semafor.com, 8 Sep. 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 11 Sep. 2026.

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Synonyms of motes

noun

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