pis·mire

(pĭs′mīr′, pĭz′-)

Archaic An ant.

[Middle English pissemyre : pisse, urine (from the smell of the formic acid that ants secrete); see piss + mire, ant (probably of Scandinavian origin; akin to Danish myre).]

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

pismire

(ˈpɪsˌmaɪə)

(Animals) an archaic or dialect word for an ant

[C14 (literally: urinating ant, from the odour of formic acid characteristic of an ant hill): from piss + obsolete mire ant, of Scandinavian origin; compare Old Norse maurr, Middle Low German mīre ant]

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

pis•mire

(ˈpɪsˌmaɪ^ər, ˈpɪz-)

n.

an ant.

[1350–1400; Middle English pissemyre=pisse(n) to urinate + myre ant, perhaps < Scandinavian (compare Dan myre, Swedish myra), c. Dutch mier; from stench of formic acid proper to ants]

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

Noun

pismire - social insect living in organized colonies; characteristically the males and fertile queen have wings during breeding season; wingless sterile females are the workers

ant, emmet

hymenopter, hymenopteran, hymenopteron, hymenopterous insect - insects having two pairs of membranous wings and an ovipositor specialized for stinging or piercing

family Formicidae, Formicidae - ants

Monomorium pharaonis, pharaoh ant, pharaoh's ant - small red ant of warm regions; a common household pest

little black ant, Monomorium minimum - tiny glossy black ant; nests outdoors but invades houses for food

army ant, driver ant, legionary ant - tropical nomadic ant that preys mainly on other insects

carpenter ant - ant that nests in decaying wood in which it bores tunnels for depositing eggs

fire ant - omnivorous ant of tropical and subtropical America that can inflict a painful sting

Formica rufa, wood ant - reddish-brown European ant typically living in anthills in woodlands

slave ant - any of various ants captured as larvae and enslaved by another species

slave-maker, slave-making ant - an ant that attacks colonies of other ant species and carries off the young to be reared as slave ants

bulldog ant - any of the large fierce Australian ants of the genus Myrmecia

Translations

Ameise

hormiga

fourmi

Mentioned in

References in classic literature

It is a very pleasant picture to imagine Antaeus standing among the Pygmies, like the spire of the tallest cathedral that ever was built, while they ran about like pismires at his feet; and to think that, in spite of their difference in size, there were affection and sympathy between them and him!

View in context

quackeries, zoological obscurities like pismire and botanical terms like

Whitman's metro-poetic lettrism: The Mannahatta skyline as sentence, syntax, and spell

I actually prefer the Old English word for them, emmet or even better the evocative and ever so slightly rude-sounding pismire. Of an estimated 22,000 ant species, 2,500 classified species have been identified from Africa alone and no one really knows how many of these are found in Egypt.

In Defense Of Ant Infestations

The tribal shaman, Pismire, advises the chief Glurk, and his philosophical comments reveal the history of those they encounter on their way to the major city of Ware, and hopefully, to safety.

Pratchett, Terry. The Carpet People

He proffers prating pronouncements of pismire presumption--two can play this game--when he writes, "[Coleridge] in his sadness offered a healing and a hope far more capacious and powerful than the paltry poultices and promises of the merely happy."

Ode to Joy

What inhibits and challenges "the affirmative impulse" in us is "the absence of any appearance of reconciliation between the theory and the practice of life" and "the disproportion between the sky of law and the pismire of performance under it." (54) This mantra criss-crosses virtually all of Emerson's writings.

The Emerson enigma

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

Biophilia, the Endangered Species Act, and a new endangered species paradigm

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a chef-d'oeuvre for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge of my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

Building Merlin's House in America