Emmet

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈɛmɪt/Rhymes: -É›mɪt

Origin

Middle English emete, from Old English æmete, (bef. 12c) Cognate to ant.

Full definition of emmet

Noun

1. (archaic) An ant
• 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, New York Review of Books, 2001, p. 47:He told him that he saw a vast multitude and a promiscuous, their habitations like molehills, the men as emmets ....
• 1789, William Blake, Songs of Innocence, :Once a dream did weave a shade
  O'er my angel-guarded bed
  That an emmet lost its way
  Where on grass methought I lay.
• 1814, William Wordsworth, The Excursion, IV.430:benignity that to the emmet gives
  Her foresight, and intelligence that makes
  The tiny creatures strong by social league.
• 1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford:We are scurrying emmets or pismires with our sad little comedies.
2. (Cornish dialect, pejorative) A tourist