A mote is a tiny speck of something, so small you might barely notice it. You've probably seen motes of dust floating through a beam of sunlight streaming into a classroom, each one drifting lazily through the air like a miniature snowflake. These tiny particles are everywhere around us, but we only see them when the light hits them just right.

The word often appears in the phrase “a mote of dust,” and it always suggests something extremely small. A writer might describe a distant ship as looking like “a mere mote on the horizon,” or an astronomer might call Earth a mote when comparing it to the vast universe. The word reminds us that even the tiniest things can be worth noticing. A single mote of dust might seem insignificant, but millions of them together can make a room look hazy, and the way they dance in sunlight can be surprisingly beautiful.