English
jot
Pronunciation
  • (America) IPA: /dʒɑt/
  • (RP) IPA: /dʒɒt/
Noun

jot (plural jots)

  1. Iota; the smallest letter or stroke of any writing.
    • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Matthew 5:18,
      Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
    • 1904, Bliss Carman, “Christmas Eve at St. Kavin’s” in Pipes of Pan: Songs from a Northern Garden, Boston: L.C. Page, p. 107,
      Of old, men said, “Sin not;
      By every line and jot
      Ye shall abide; man’s heart is false and vile.”
  2. A small amount, bit; the smallest amount.
    He didn't care a jot for his work.
    • c. 1607, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act II, Scene 2,
      Sir, the people
      Must have their voices; neither will they bate
      One jot of ceremony.
    • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, 3rd edition, p. 159,
      After this I spent a great deal of Time and Pains to make me an Umbrella; I was indeed in great want of one, and had a great mind to make one; I had seen them made in the Brasils, where they are very useful in the great Heats which are there: And I felt the Heats every jot as great here, and greater too, being nearer the Equinox […]
    • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Volume I, Chapter 8,
      “If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside,” cried Bingley, “it would not make them one jot less agreeable.”
    • 1903, George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act I,
      […] the artist’s work is to show us ourselves as we really are. Our minds are nothing but this knowledge of ourselves; and he who adds a jot to such knowledge creates new mind as surely as any woman creates new men.
    • 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Chapter 8,
      “What does that matter? Arsenic would put poor Emily out of the way just as well as strychnine. If I’m convinced he did it, it doesn’t matter a jot to me how he did it.”
  3. (obsolete) Moment, instant.
    • 1595, Edmund Spenser, Amoretti in Kenneth J. Larson (ed.), Amoretti and Epithalamion: A Critical Edition, Tempe, AZ: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1997, Sonnet LVII, p. 91,
      So weake my powres, so sore my wounds appeare,
      that wonder is how I should liue a iot,
      seeing my hart through launched euery where
      with thousand arrowes, which your eies haue shot:
    • c. 1599, William Shakespeare, Twelfth Night, Act III, Scene 2,
      No, faith, I'll not stay a jot longer.
    • 1728, Lewis Theobald, Double Falshood: or, the Distrest Lovers, London: J. Watts, Act I, Scene 1, p. 12,
      Making my Death familiar to my Tongue
      Digs not my Grave one Jot before the Date.
  4. A brief and hurriedly written note.
    • 1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book II, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 53:
      "I say, it is no uneven jot, to pass from the more faint and obscure examples of Spermatical life to the more considerable effects of general Motion in Minerals, Metalls, and sundry Meteors ..."
    • 1920, Robert Nichols, “Sonnets to Aurelia, IV” in Aurelia and Other Poems, London: Chatto & Windus, p. 29,
      “Lover,” you say; “how beautiful that is,
      That little word!” […]
      Yes, it is beautiful. I have marked it long,
      Long in my dusty head its jot secreted,
      Yet my heart never knew this word a song
      Till in the night softly by you repeated.
Synonyms Translations Verb

jot (jots, present participle jotting; past and past participle jotted)

  1. (usually with "down") To write quickly.
    Tell me your order, so I can jot it down.
Translations
  • German: schnell hinschreiben
  • Russian: черкну́ть


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