dite

present singular third person dites · participle present diting · participle past dited · past dited

1. obsoletetransitiveTo prepare for use or action; to make ready.

   His hideous club aloft he dites.

   1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto VIII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC, stanza 18

plural dites

1. MaineUSA trifling quantity or amount.

   A “dite” is a Maine measurement, somewhere between a smidge and a bit.

   2 more examples

   Two carpenters were moving a small building onto a new foundation, and one of them says, “Shove it my way a dite!” The other shoved, but shoved a little too hard. “Nope — too much! I said a dite!”

   2019, John Gould, This Trifling Distinction: Reminiscences from Down East, Down East Books, →ISBN, page 95

   “Set your calipers a dite bigger’n the hole so’s they’ll fit good and snug.”

   1993, Ralph Moody, The Fields of Home, U of Nebraska Press, →ISBN, page 80