pismire
[pis-mahyuh r, piz-]
- an ant.
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Origin of pismire
1350–1400; Middle English pissemyre, equivalent to pisse to urinate + obsolete mire ant, perhaps < Scandinavian (compare Danish myre, Swedish myra), cognate with Dutch mier; pejorative name from stench of formic acid proper to ants
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for pismire
Historical Examples
At first he said he was a pismire, but the Speaker said pismire was not parliamentary, and he modified it to grasshopper.
I've got a thousand-legged worm at the head of a pismire flush, and it serves us right, for a lot of slovens.
Woodcraft and CampingGeorge Washington Sears (Nessmuk)
Bache tells us that pismire was also banned, antmire being substituted for it.
The American LanguageHenry L. Mencken
As if we should look upon an ant or pismire, the parts fly the sight, and the whole considered is almost nothing.
Discoveries Made Upon Men and MatterBen Jonson
Thou art no more than a pismire; why wilt thou seek to provoke the elephants?
pismire
- an archaic or dialect word for an ant
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Word Origin
C14 (literally: urinating ant, from the odour of formic acid characteristic of an ant hill): from piss + obsolete mire ant, of Scandinavian origin; compare Old Norse maurr, Middle Low German mīre ant
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for pismire
n.
"ant," late 14c. (early 14c. as a surname), from pyss "urine" (said to be in reference to the acrid smell of an anthill) + mire "an ant," probably from Old Norse maurr "ant" (cf. Swedish myra, Danish myre, Middle Dutch miere, Dutch mier, Crimean Gothic miera "ant"), from PIE base *morwi- (see Formica (2)). Cf. pissant, also early Dutch mierseycke (from seycke "urine"), Finnish kusiainen (from kusi "urine").
He is as angry as a pissemyre,
Though þat he haue al that he kan desire.
[Chaucer]
Applied contemptuously to persons from 1560s.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper