pismire

English

Etymology

From Middle English pissemyre, equivalent to piss + mire (“ant”). So called due to the smell of anthills. Compare English pissant, Old Frisian pisimme, Dutch pismiere, Swedish pissmyra.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɪsmaɪə(ɹ)/

Noun

pismire (plural pismires)

1. (UK, Ireland, archaic) An ant.
   • c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The First Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iii]:

     Why looke you, I am whipt and ſcourg'd with rods,
     Netled, and ſtung with piſmires, when I heare
     Of this vile polititian, Bullingbrooke,

   • 1658, Sir Thomas Browne, The Garden of Cyrus, Folio Society, published 2007, page 189:

     Much there is not of wonder in the confused Houses of Pismires, though much in their busie life and actions […]

   • 1782, J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur, Letters from an American Farmer:

     What are we in the great scale of events, we poor defenceless frontier inhabitants? What is it to the gazing world, whether we breathe or whether we die? Whatever virtue, whatever merit and disinterestedness we may exhibit in our secluded retreats, of what avail? We are like the pismires destroyed by the plough; whose destruction prevents not the future crop.

   • 1993, Anthony Burgess, A Dead Man in Deptford:

     We are scurrying emmets or pismires with our sad little comedies.

Translations

ant — see ant

Anagrams

• impires, simpier

Middle English

Noun

pismire

1. Alternative form of pissemyre