pismire
Americannoun
noun
Etymology
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
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
All of us are able to smell ants, for which the great word pismire was originally coined.
From "The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas
He spoke of himself as a “shrimp of an author,” and expressed the fear that his works might be mistaken for those of “a pismire or a flea.”
From The Art of Letters by Lynd, Robert
Yet all this lenity will not overcome their spleen; they will be doing with the pismire, raising a hill a man may spurn abroad with his foot at pleasure.
From Every Man in His Humor by Jonson, Ben
Celia: You would never be satisfied and you to see me working from dark to dark as hard as a pismire in the tufts.
From Three Wonder Plays by Gregory, Lady
A light dawned upon the intellect of that pismire.
From Cobwebs from an Empty Skull by Bierce, Ambrose
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
