How to Use mote in a Sentence

mote

noun
Definition of motenext
Synonyms for motenext
  • The more motes you bank at once, the bigger the blocker.
    — Aaron Zimmerman, Ars Technica, 19 Sep. 2018
  • Worse yet, the first two-thirds of the picture look dim and murky, as if it had been shot through a scrim of dust motes.
    — Stephanie Zacharek, Time, 16 May 2018
  • It was crushed under the shoes of guests, so little motes of popcorn dust blew through the air.
    — Vanessa Friedman, New York Times, 14 Feb. 2018
  • The Book of Dust is love—nostalgic, warming, pure—at first mote.
    — Katy Waldman, Slate Magazine, 18 Oct. 2017
  • At the top, a half-open door emits a cloud of sparkly dust motes or tiny stars that may at first escape your notice.
    — Roberta Smith, New York Times, 6 Feb. 2020
  • George was nearly beyond retrieval, a tiny glint of a mote, like a wayward flea.
    — Cynthia Ozick, The New Yorker, 14 June 2021
  • But there is a mote of solace that bears repeating: Hair is just a piece of our identity.
    — Sarah Maslin Nir, Town & Country, 23 Apr. 2018
  • Forget the Super Mario Galaxy gimmick where a second player can aim a Wii-mote and point at shiny stars.
    — Sam MacHkovech, Ars Technica, 10 Sep. 2019
  • The mote also features a layer of special conductive film and a thin sheet of copper.
    — Courtney Linder, Popular Mechanics, 11 June 2021
  • The hurricane likely would act like an air filter, trapping motes of dust in raindrops.
    — Jim Nash, The Atlantic, 18 Oct. 2017
  • Even in the narrow disk, which is less than half an inch wide, Trichoplax is so small that finding it with the naked eye is like searching for a dust mote in a gymnasium.
    — Emily Underwood, The Atlantic, 8 June 2020
  • Vanquished enemies drop motes of light, which players race to collect and bank at a central console.
    — Aaron Zimmerman, Ars Technica, 19 Sep. 2018
  • Every dust mote, every linoleum scuff and porcelain glint has been crafted with breathtaking care.
    — The Washington Post, The Mercury News, 20 June 2019
  • The main worry is with the tiniest motes — known as PM 2.5, particulate matter smaller than 2.5 microns across.
    — Sara Morrison, USA TODAY, 13 July 2018
  • But the superconducting sensors could measure only the average field across the zircons, which are as small as motes of dust.
    — Paul Voosen, Science | AAAS, 22 Apr. 2020
  • Both of those shooters required aiming a Wii-mote as a pointer at all times, and this enabled a remarkable level of precision.
    — Sam MacHkovech, Ars Technica, 20 Feb. 2018
  • Check out the mote notable player reactions to Durant's injury below.
    — Michael Shapiro, SI.com, 10 June 2019
  • The larvae, which live in the water, attach themselves to rocks by one end, and use feathery appendages at the other end as a kind of net to catch the tiniest bits of edible detritus — motes that are too small for fish and other insects.
    — James Gorman, New York Times, 28 Oct. 2019
  • Reality was droning on as usual, with impartial sunlight streaming through a nearby window and picking out swirls of dust motes.
    — Peter Schjeldahl, The New Yorker, 16 Dec. 2019
  • Plus Facebook has a strong interest in gaming and the reputation for going out and spending big on companies that can help expand its social networking mote.
    — Theodore Schleifer, Recode, 21 Nov. 2018
  • Viruses infiltrate every aspect of our natural world, seething in seawater, drifting through the atmosphere, and lurking in miniscule motes of soil.
    — Lynn Johnson, National Geographic, 15 Apr. 2020
  • These celestial lighthouses can basically backlight the material that crosses the beam’s path, just as a flashlight beam illuminates unseen motes of dust in the air.
    — Amina Khan, latimes.com, 20 June 2018
  • The supernova campaign serves as a reminder, whether comforting or terrifying, that humanity exists on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam, as Carl Sagan once wrote.
    — Marina Koren, The Atlantic, 2 June 2017
  • Rather than cutting, doubling funding for some form of competitive grants to states would allow the federal government to incentivize high quality pre-K in the majority of states, while still the size of dust mote in the federal budget.
    — Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, 5 June 2017
  • Motes was prohibited from soliciting customers or employees or opening a competing business in the state for two years after leaving the company, the lawsuit says.
    — Lorraine Mirabella, baltimoresun.com, 5 June 2017
  • Next stop, the cavernous auditorium whose darkened mezzanine and decorative chandeliers are barely visible in the motes of daylight piercing through holes in the high ceiling.
    — Valerie Strauss, Washington Post, 7 Sep. 2017
  • The work, published Wednesday in Science Advances, also provides more evidence that motes of plastic are likely constantly circulating in the atmosphere, underscoring just how ubiquitous the plastic pollution problem is.
    — Andrea Thompson, Scientific American, 14 Aug. 2019
  • While paleontologists studying dinosaurs can sometimes bring an unambiguously gigantic femur home, those who study the origins of life are usually left arguing over the significance of microscopic motes of rock.
    — Scott K. Johnson, Ars Technica, 30 Sep. 2017
  • Researchers find binary star systems fascinating because of their turbulent gravitational environments, which complicate how planets clump up from motes of interstellar dust.
    — Michael Greshko, National Geographic, 1 Dec. 2019
  • The more motes you bank at once, the bigger the blocker.
    — Aaron Zimmerman, Ars Technica, 19 Sep. 2018

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'mote.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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