widow's mite

plural widow's mites

1. idiomaticA very small gift or donation which, however, represents a great sacrifice on the part of the giver.

   That widow on Monday was it outside Cramer's that looked at me. Buried the poor husband but progressing favorably on the premium. Her widow's mite.

   1922 February 2, James Joyce, “[Episode 13: Nausicaa]”, in Ulysses, Paris: Shakespeare and Company […], →OCLC, part II [Odyssey], page 363

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   The matter of this Duty, is ſomething of theſe worldly Goods which God hath given us, are juſtly our own, and which we may ſpare, though never ſo little, if but the poor Widow's mite: for God requires our Charity according to our portion, we must give willingly and plentifully.

   1662, George Lawson, chapter XIII, in An Exposition of the Epistle to the Hebrewes. […], London: Printed by J. S. for George Sawbridge, […], →OCLC, verse 16, page 354

   What are the sinews and souls of Russian serfs and Republican slaves but Fast-Fish, whereof possession is the whole of the law? What to the rapacious landlord is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish?

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “Fast-fish and Loose-fish”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 443

   The widow had but only one, / A puny and decrepid son; / But day and night, / Though fretful oft, and weak, and small, / A loving child, he was her all— / The widow's mite.

   1857, Frederick Locker, “The Widow’s Mite”, in London Lyrics, London: Chapman and Hall, […], →OCLC, page 72

   “A mite and the ‘widow’s mite,’ are some way apart, my dear,” said Aunt Dorothy; “your ‘widow’s mite,’ I suppose, might be the parsonage and the glebe, and those cows in your uncle’s park and meadow. Take care what you offer to the Lord. He sometimes takes us at our word. And there are plunderers abroad who take their own estimate of people’s mites, widows’ and others.”

   1866, [Elizabeth Rundle Charles], chapter VII, in The Draytons and the Davenants: A Story of the Civil Wars, author’s edition, New York, N.Y.: M. W. Dodd, […], →OCLC, page 270

   After the woman who gave me those ties left me that day, a cloud of guilt hung over me, and I couldn't shake it. It stayed with me through the night. I couldn't sleep. The woman was in her late sixties at the least, and she walked as if she carried the world on her shoulders. But she'd found a way to thank me. And I knew it was the widow's mite.

   2008, Gwynne Forster, chapter 1, in What Matters Most (Arabesque Contemporary Romance), Washington, D.C.: Kimani Press, →ISBN

2. hobbiesThe lepton coin.

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   Leptons became famous as the "widows mites" when Christ observed a widow donating two of them to the temple treasury. Christ noted that she had donated more than everyone else had because that was all she had. The two mites were worth about 70 cents to one dollar in modern buying power, or about enough for a meal of beans.

   2002, Ralph L. Stephenson, chapter 6, in The Biblical Guide to Wealth, Health, and Happiness, Victoria, B.C.: Trafford Publishing, page 131