Words & WritingGreek → English
Iota
/aɪˈoʊtə/noun
The smallest possible amount of something.
The Greek roots
ἰῶτα
iôta
the letter iota
Literally: “the smallest letter”
Follow a root:ἰῶτα2 words
The story of the word
The letter is a single vertical stroke, the least ink in the alphabet. Matthew's gospel has Jesus say that not one iota will pass from the law, and Tyndale translated that same word as jot, so English ended up carrying both the Greek form and its worn-down English twin. The fourth-century Arian controversy really did turn on one iota: homoousios, of the same substance, against homoiousios, of like substance.
- How it travelled
- Ancient Greek → Latin → English
Same family
jotiotacism
In a sentence
He has not changed one iota since school.
There is not an iota of evidence for it, which has never slowed anyone down.