Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Archaic An ant.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun An ant or emmet.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Zoöl.) An ant, or emmet.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun regional An
ant .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun social insect living in organized colonies; characteristically the males and fertile queen have wings during breeding season; wingless sterile females are the workers
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word pismire.
Examples
-
Scared of an Internet troll with a pismire sized brain and an overlarge mouth?
-
Since I am not ready to rule out anything; even the preposterous idea that a pismire may indeed carry off a saw log; I would not absolutely rule out some general correlation between skin color and intelligence.
The Volokh Conspiracy » A View from an Incoming Harvard 1L 2010
-
Scared of an Internet troll with a pismire sized brain and an overlarge mouth?
-
Since I am not ready to rule out anything; even the preposterous idea that a pismire may indeed carry off a saw log; I would not absolutely rule out some general correlation between skin color and intelligence.
The Volokh Conspiracy » A View from an Incoming Harvard 1L 2010
-
So vast is the disproportion between the sky of law and the pismire of performance under it, that whether he is a man of worth or a sot is not so great a matter as we say.
Representative Men 2006
-
The little pismire tried to have me arrested and confined, but I escaped him using two of my sigils.
Conqueror's Moon May, Julian 2003
-
I saw him as a small-minded pismire, and when he tried to yank, I gnawed chunks out of him.
Rogue Warrior Marcinko, Richard 1992
-
"Now we'll see how well you hide, you insolent little pismire!"
The Golden Torc May, Julian, 1931- 1981
-
Urad, trembling and sighing at her danger, forgot not to drop one of her peppercorns, and immediately she found herself changed into a pismire, and with great pleasure she looked for a hole in the ground, and crept into it.
-
Urad, perceiving that they were gone, wished herself into her original form, but alas! her wish was not granted, and the once beautiful Urad still continued an ugly pismire.
oroboros commented on the word pismire
See formicate.
June 21, 2007
muamor commented on the word pismire
"He is an angry as a pissemyre,
Though þat he haue al that he kan desire."
Chaucer.
Pismire + ant = pissant.
March 4, 2008
hernesheir commented on the word pismire
cf. pisant
January 1, 2009
Gammerstang commented on the word pismire
(noun) - (1) The old name of the ant, an insect very generally named from the sharp urinous smell of an anthill. From Dutch miere, pismiere, an ant. --Hensleigh Wedgwood's Dictionary of English Etymology, 1878 (2) An ant discharges an irritant formic acid vulgarly regarded as urine. --Charles Annandale's Imperial Dictionary of the English Language, 1897 (3) Also written passimere in North Yorkshire, pisamoor in East Lancashire, pishamer in Norfolk, pishemeer in East Anglia, and pissymyour in South Cheshire, and pishminnies in Scotland. --Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary, 1896-1905
January 27, 2018