Crossword Dictionary
shred, scintilla, whit, iota, tittle, smidgen, smidgeon, smidgin, smidge - n
a tiny or scarcely detectable amount
Examples:
She wouldn't share one iota about the party she had been at the other night.
It might be smart to shred those documents when you're done with them, that way there isn't a single iota of personal information left behind.
Do you think we'll even get an iota of the birthday cake that they bought on our behalf?
That vacuum didn't leave an iota of dirt or dust on the floor; I must say I was quite impressed.
speck
noun
a small spot differing in color or substance from that of the surface or material upon which it appears or lies.
synonyms
blot, dot, fleck, iota, mite, particle, shred, splotch
examples:
‘Then be grateful for this perk, And forget that the economy is dreck, And while I plot my coup — here’s what I’ve got for you, It’s just a speck.’
‘Hundreds of specks appear clustered beyond Neptune, a hint that something up to 10 times as massive as Earth might lie beyond.’
‘That star was no longer an anonymous speck floating in a vast uncharted sea.’
‘An atomic nucleus is a vanishingly small speck at the core of a comparatively vast atom.’
IOTA
shred, scintilla, whit, iota, tittle, smidgen, smidgeon, smidgin, smidge - n
a tiny or scarcely detectable amount
Synonyms
beans, bubkes (also bupkes or bupkus), continental, damn, darn (also durn), diddly [slang], diddly-squat [slang], doodley-squat (or doodly-squat), fig, ghost, hoot, jot, lick, modicum, rap, squat [slang], syllable, tittle, whit, whoop
Examples
As you listen, one thing will become clear - time has not dulled the power of this music one iota.
Six months of marriage had not diminished an iota the awe in which he held this woman he so loved.
No western government cares one iota about the Kurds except to the extent that they can be usefully mobilized against a strategic nuisance.
Etymology
"very small amount," 1630s, figurative use of iota, ninth and smallest letter in the Greek alphabet (corresponding to Latin -i-). Its use in this sense is after Matthew v.18 (see jot (n.), which is the earlier form of the name in English), but iota in classical Greek also was proverbially used of anything very small. The letter name is from Semitic (compare Phoenician and Hebrew yodh).