Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also mitey) a cheesemonger.

1765		Foote The Commissary 47: There liv’d Miss Cicely Mite, the only daughter of old Mite the cheesemonger.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 316/1: mite, [...] marchand de fromages.
1873		Sl. Dict.

2. (also might) a whit or jot, a bit [SE 14C–mid-17C].

1855		J.S. Coyne Pippins and Pies 66: He doan’t care a might about that red-hared creetur at number 19.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 206/1: I didn’t know anything about photographs then, not a mite.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 28: It ain’t changed a mite, Johnny.
1933		N. Algren ‘So Help Me’ in Texas Stories (1995) 16: We got a mite friendly then.
1947		W.D. Overholser Buckaroo’s Code (1948) 81: You’re a mite cocky, son.
1954		Oh Boy! No. 18 8: Reckon I’d better thin it out a mite.
1999		K. Sampson Powder 378: He was becoming a mite too persistent.

3. a particle, a tiny piece [SE 17C].

1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor III 91/2: You see they all give; even a child will give its mite.
1898		E. Pugh Tony Drum 85: Well, a mite of warm gin.
1916		J. Lait ‘It Wasn’t Honest, But It Was Sweet’ in Beef, Iron and Wine (1917) 225: She would poise the can in her left hand and hold it up, and with her right would slip in the day’s mite, rattle her treasure again.
1933		N. Algren ‘So Help Me’ in Texas Stories (1995) 17: He [...] didn’t offer the kid none ’cause he oney had a mite left for hisself.
1934		O. Strange Sudden 166: I ain’t scared a mite.

4. a farthing.

1959

I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 175: A farthing is a ‘mite’.