dite

A trifling quantity or amount.

Noun

  1. A trifling quantity or amount.
    • A “dite” is a Maine measurement, somewhere between a smidge and a bit.
    • Two carpenters were moving a small building onto a new foundation, and one of them says, “Shove it my way a dite!” The other shoved, but shoved a little too hard. “Nope — too much! I said a dite!” - 2019, John Gould,...
    • “Set your calipers a dite bigger’n the hole so’s they’ll fit good and snug.” - 1993, Ralph Moody, The Fields of Home, U of Nebraska Press, →ISBN, page 80:

Origin

Variant of doit.

Forms

dites

Verb

  1. To prepare for use or action; to make ready.
    • His hideous club aloft he dites. - 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 18:

Origin

See dight.

Forms

dites diting dited