It's Merriam-Webster's word of the day for August 12th.

Today's word is iota spelled Iota A. Iota is a noun. An Iota is an infinitesimal amount of something.

The word Iota is used synonymously with the etymology-related word the word

jot, and by its oldest definition refers to the ninth letter of the Greek

alphabet. Here's the word used in a sentence from Vogue by Katie Greenwald.

Six years and one pandemic later, the owner's standards have not slipped one iota.

Feel free to jot this down so you don't forget.

The words iota and jot share a lot more than just a common meaning.

Both ultimately come from the same word.

When Latin scholars transcribed the Greek... ultimately come from the same word.

When Latin scholars transcribed the Greek name of the ninth letter of the Greek alphabet,

they spelled it as either Iota or Jota.

The letters I and J were simply variants of each other.

And these spellings eventually passed into English as iota and Jot.

Since the Greek letter Iota is the smallest letter of the alphabet, also sometimes pronounced eyoda,

both words eventually came to be used in reference to very small things.

With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski.

Visit Marion Webster.com today, for definitions, word play, and trending word lookups.