jot

noun

1. The smallest letter or stroke of any writing; an iota.

   “This bond doth giue thee here no iote of blood, / The vvords expreſly are a pound of fleſh: / Take then thy bond, take thou thy pound of fleſh, / But in the cutting of it, if thou doſt ſhed / One drop of Chriſtian blood, thy lands and goods / Are by the lavves of Venice, confiſcate / Vnto the State of Venice.”

   “For verily I ſay vnto you, Till heauen and earth paſſe, one iote or one tittle, ſhall in no wiſe paſſe from the law, till all be fulfilled.”

   “Of old, men said, "Sin not; / By every line and jot / Ye shall abide; man's heart is false and vile."”

2. (broadly)A small, or the smallest, amount of a thing; a bit, a whit.

   “He didn’t care a jot for his work.”

   “Sir, the People muſt haue their Voiyes, / Neyther vvill they bate / One iot of Ceremonie.”

   “After this I ſpent a great deal of Time and Pains to make me an Umbrella; I vvas indeed in great vvant of one, and had a great mind to make one; I had ſeen them made in the Braſils, vvhere they are very uſeful in the great Heats vvhich are there: And I felt the Heats every jot as great here, and greater too, being nearer the Equinox; […]”

   “[T]hough Richard [III] vvas purſued and killed as a uſurper, the Solomon that ſucceeded him [Henry VII of England], vvas not a jot leſs a tyrant.”

   “"If they had uncles enough to fill all Cheapside," cried Bingley, "it would not make them one jot less agreeable."”

3. (broadly, obsolete)A small, or the smallest, amount of a thing; a bit, a whit.

   “So vveake my povvres, ſo ſore my vvounds appeare, / that vvonder is hovv I ſhould liue a iot, / ſeeing my hart through launched euery vvhere / vvith thouſand arrovves, vvhich your eies haue ſhot: […]”

   “No faith, Ile not ſtay a iot longer: […]”

   “Making my Death familiar to my Tongue / Digs not my Grave one Jot before the Date.”

4. A brief and hurriedly written note.

   “"Lover," you say; "how beautiful that is, / That little word!” […] / Yes, it is beautiful. I have marked it long, / Long in my dusty head its jot secreted, / Yet my heart never knew this word a song / Till in the night softly by you repeated.”

5. (obsolete, rare)A jerk, a jolt.

   “[F]requent jot / Of his hard ſetting jade did ſo confound / The vvords that he by papyr-ſtealth had got, / That their loſt ſenſe the youngſter could not ſound, / Though he vvith mimical attention did abound.”

   “[…] I ſay it is no uneven jot, to paſſe from the more faint and obſcure examples of Spermaticall life, to the more conſiderable effects of generall Motion in Mineralls, Metalls & ſundry Meteors, […]”

verb

1. (transitive)Chiefly followed by down: to write (something) quickly; to make a brief note of (something).

   “Tell me your order so I can jot it down.”

   “He mentions as certain the falsehood of a number of the assertions concerning his usage, the unhealthy state of the island, and so forth. I have jotted down his evidence elsewhere.”

2. (dialectal, transitive)To jerk or jolt (something); to jog.

   “Nowe is iuſte iuſtice, ſo iotted out of iointe, / That ye here vniuſtely, ſtande at deniall, / To do me iuſtice, and wolde by power ryall: / Directe mine acquitall or condemnacion, / Euen as wyll in both: weith your acceptacion.”