different between jot vs inch

English

Etymology

From Latin i?ta, from Ancient Greek ???? (iôta). Doublet of iota.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /d??t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /d??t/
• Rhymes: -?t

Noun

jot (plural jots)

1. Iota; the smallest letter or stroke of any writing.
   • 1904, Bliss Carman, “Christmas Eve at St. Kavin’s” in Pipes of Pan: Songs from a Northern Garden, Boston: L.C. Page, p. 107,^[1]

     Of old, men said, “Sin not;

     By every line and jot

     Ye shall abide; man’s heart is false and vile.”

2. A small amount, bit; the smallest amount.

   He didn't care a jot for his work.

   • 1719, Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe, London: W. Taylor, 3rd edition, p. 159,^[2]

     After this I spent a great deal of Time and Pains to make me an Umbrella; I was indeed in great want of one, and had a great mind to make one; I had seen them made in the Brasils, where they are very useful in the great Heats which are there: And I felt the Heats every jot as great here, and greater too, being nearer the Equinox […]

   • 1920, Agatha Christie, The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Chapter 8,^[3]

     “What does that matter? Arsenic would put poor Emily out of the way just as well as strychnine. If I’m convinced he did it, it doesn’t matter a jot to me how he did it.”

3. (obsolete) A moment, an instant.
   • 1595, Edmund Spenser, Amoretti in Kenneth J. Larson (ed.), Amoretti and Epithalamion: A Critical Edition, Tempe, AZ: Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, 1997, Sonnet LVII, p. 91,^[4]

     So weake my powres, so sore my wounds appeare,

     that wonder is how I should liue a iot,

     seeing my hart through launched euery where

     with thousand arrowes, which your eies haue shot:

   • 1728, Lewis Theobald, Double Falshood: or, the Distrest Lovers, London: J. Watts, Act I, Scene 1, p. 12,^[5]

     Making my Death familiar to my Tongue

     Digs not my Grave one Jot before the Date.

4. A brief and hurriedly written note.
   • 1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Book II, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, p. 53:

     "I say, it is no uneven jot, to pass from the more faint and obscure examples of Spermatical life to the more considerable effects of general Motion in Minerals, Metalls, and sundry Meteors ..."

   • 1920, Robert Nichols, “Sonnets to Aurelia, IV” in Aurelia and Other Poems, London: Chatto & Windus, p. 29,^[6]

     “Lover,” you say; “how beautiful that is,

     That little word!” […]

     Yes, it is beautiful. I have marked it long,

     Long in my dusty head its jot secreted,

     Yet my heart never knew this word a song

     Till in the night softly by you repeated.

Synonyms

• (small amount): see also Thesaurus:modicum.

Derived terms

• every jot and tittle
• not a jot or tittle

Translations

See also

• tittle

Verb

jot (third-person singular simple present jots, present participle jotting, simple past and past participle jotted)

1. (usually with "down") To write quickly.

   Tell me your order, so I can jot it down.

Derived terms

• jot down

Translations

Anagrams

• OJT, OTJ

Central Franconian

Alternative forms

• jott (westernmost Ripuarian)
• got (northern Moselle Franconian)
• gut (southern Moselle Franconian)

Etymology

From Old High German guod, northern variant of guot, from Proto-Germanic *g?daz.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jo?t/

Adjective

jot (masculine jode, feminine jot, comparative besser, superlative et beste)

1. (most of Ripuarian) good

Ingrian

Etymology

From Proto-Finnic *jo. Cognate to Finnish jotta.

Conjunction

jot

1. so that, in order that

Luxembourgish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jo?t/, /?o?t/

Verb

jot

1. inflection of joen:
   1. second-person plural present indicative
   2. second-person plural imperative

Rayón Zoque

Noun

jot

1. bird

Derived terms

• jot?une

See also

• jotjot

References

• Harrison, Roy; B. de Harrison, Margaret; López Juárez, Francisco; Ordoñes, Cosme (1984) Vocabulario zoque de Rayón (Serie de diccionarios y vocabularios indígenas Mariano Silva y Aceves; 28)?^[7] (in Spanish), México, D.F.: Instituto Lingüístico de Verano, page 10

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?nt?/
• Rhymes: -?nt?

Etymology 1

From Middle English ynche, enche, from Old English ynce, borrowed from Latin uncia (“twelfth part”). Doublet of ounce.

Noun

inch (plural inches)

1. A unit of length equal to one twelfth of a foot, or exactly 2.54 centimetres.
2. (meteorology) The amount of water which would cover a surface to the depth of an inch, used as a measurement of rainfall.
3. The amount of an alcoholic beverage which would fill a glass or bottle to the depth of an inch.
4. (figuratively) A very short distance.

   "Don't move an inch!"

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ??? (inchi)
• ? Korean: ?? (inchi)

Translations

Verb

inch (third-person singular simple present inches, present participle inching, simple past and past participle inched)

1. (intransitive, followed by a preposition) To advance very slowly, or by a small amount (in a particular direction).

   Fearful of falling, he inched along the window ledge.

   • 1957, J. D. Salinger, "Zooey", in, 1961, Franny and Zooey:

     The window blind had been lowered — Zooey had done all his bathtub reading by the light from the three-bulb overhead fixture—but a fraction of morning light inched under the blind and onto the title page of the manuscript.
2. To drive by inches, or small degrees.
   • 1692, John Dryden, Cleomenes, the Spartan Hero, a Tragedy

     He gets too far into the soldier's grace / And inches out my master.

3. To deal out by inches; to give sparingly.

Derived terms

Translations

See also

• thou
• mil

Etymology 2

From Scottish Gaelic innis

Noun

inch (plural inches)

1. (Scotland) A small island

Usage notes

• Found especially in the names of small Scottish islands, e.g. Inchcolm, Inchkeith.

Anagrams

• Ch'in, Chin, chin, ichn-

Middle English

Noun

inch

1. Alternative form of ynche