Etymology: Cognate with Middle Dutch mīte woodworm, cheese-mite, bookworm (Dutch mijt), Middle Low German mīte, Old High German mīza gnat, Norwegian mit, Norwegian (Bokmål) midd, Danish mid, mide, midde; further etymology uncertain and disputed. Compare Old French mitte, Middle French, French mite moth (end of the 13th cent. in Old French in sense ‘type of insect which gnaws fabrics or eats cheese’), probably < Middle Dutch.

Etymology: < Middle Dutch meite, meute, mite, mütte small copper coin, also in figurative use in sense ‘little bit, jot, whit’ (Dutch mijt , mieter , mijter ), probably originally spec. use of mite mite n.¹ In English perhaps partly via Middle French mite (1288 in Old French in sense ‘small Flemish copper coin’, first half of the 14th cent. in Old French in figurative use; also in Old French as mitte). Compare Middle Low German mīte, mīt small Dutch coin, also in figurative use, German †Meit, †Meite little bit, whit, jot (16th cent. or earlier), both < Middle Dutch.In early examples in Flemish sources apparently denoting a coin worth ⅓ of a Flemish penny, though other, chiefly smaller, values are also found. From the late 14th cent. mite has been the usual rendering (though the Wyclif versions have ‘mynutis’) of post-classical Latin minutum (Vulgate), Hellenistic Greek λεπτόν in Mark 12:42, where two ‘mites’ are stated to make a ‘farthing’ (Hellenistic Greek κοδράντης , post-classical Latin quadrans ); hence the word was popularly taken as equivalent to ‘half farthing’. With sense 4a compare earlier miting n.