Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The ninth letter of the Greek alphabet.
- noun A very small amount; a bit.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The name of the Greek letter I,
ι , corresponding to the Latin and English I, i. - noun A very small quantity; a tittle; a jot.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The ninth letter of the Greek alphabet (ι) corresponding with the English i.
- noun A very small quantity or degree; a jot; a particle.
- noun (Gr. Gram.) iota written beneath a preceding vowel, as a,, h,, w,, -- done when iota is silent.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The ninth, and smallest, letter of the
Greek alphabet. - noun A
jot ; a very small,inconsiderable quantity.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a tiny or scarcely detectable amount
- noun the 9th letter of the Greek alphabet
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word iota.
Examples
-
She is a fresh face on the scene, but the ideas she espouses are certainly not fresh; they deviate not an iota from the Karl Rove memo-of-the-day repeated endlessly by the clones at Fox.
-
Now I know you will likely chose the former wwallace, because you, like most right wingers, act on emotions, balling and crying over how brave you all are, and ignore logic and scientific reason, but it does not diminish one iota from the rest of the worlds capability to discern.
Think Progress » Bush Delegation Stages “Walk Out” at Climate Talks 2005
-
The long centuries that have since rolled by have not subtracted one iota from the wisdom of that advice.
-
If one iota is wanting in the balance of any of these three factors, let her cast her love aside as a spurious article – she will love again; but if the investigation is satisfactory, let her hold it fast, and let nothing take it from her.
The Romance of Isabel, Lady Burton William Henry Burton Wilkins 1897
-
Genius, devotion, and courage; the adornments of his mind, and the energies of his soul, all exerted to their uttermost stretch, could not roll back one hair's breadth the wheel of time's chariot; that which had been was written with the adamantine pen of reality, on the everlasting volume of the past; nor could agony and tears suffice to wash out one iota from the act fulfilled.
I.8 1826
-
She resolved that nothing, come what would, should tempt her to swerve one iota from the straight line of truth; she resolved to be more careful of her private hour; she thought she had scarcely had her full hour a day lately; she resolved to make the Bible her only and her constant rule of life in every thing; – and she prayed, such prayers as a heart thoroughly in earnest can pray, for the seal to these resolutions.
The Wide, Wide World 1892
-
Of course, the closest cognate to any of these rephrasings is the well-known term used to designate (also pejoratively) 'the Sicarii' -- the 'iota' and the 'sigma' of the Greek simply having been reversed, a common mistake in the transliteration of Semitic orthography into unrelated languages further afield like English, the 'iota' likewise too generating out of the 'ios' of the Greek singular 'Sicarios.'
-
Taking a strong exception to the news article carried in a section of media he said that there was not even an 'iota' of truth involved and appealed that the media should act with more responsibility before going ahead with such stories which damages the image of the institution.
-
Alternative view: the phrase 'not one jot or tittle' has passed into everyday English and is generally understood. 'iota' and 'prime-mark' are terms with which few people are familiar.
-
His "coming out party" has been gloriously trumpeted globally while locally he won't even supply one "iota" of proof to let us home folks know where he was really born.
bilby commented on the word iota
Compare IOTA.
August 18, 2021
ruzuzu commented on the word iota
Why I oughta...
August 18, 2021