jot or tittle

J

jot or tittle (idiom)
/dʒɑt ɔr ˈtɪtəl/

“Jot and tittle” is an English idiom meaning “the smallest detail” or “the tiniest bit,” typically used to stress exactness or completeness. The expression is rooted in the language of biblical textuality and moved, via early English Bible translations, into secular English as a fixed phrase.

Meanings

1. A very small amount; the tiniest detail.
2. A tiny portion of something.
3. (Figurative/Biblical) Extremely small graphic details in Hebrew writing, emphasizing the enduring precision of the Law.
4. The smallest letter in the Hebrew alphabet (yod/yodh).
5. A tiny pen stroke or diacritical mark distinguishing certain Hebrew letters.

Synonyms: bit and piece; iota; whit; smidgen; speck.

Example Sentences

1. Not a jot or tittle of truth remained in his excuse.
2. Jesus stressed that not one jot or one tittle would pass from the Law until all was fulfilled.
3. She checked every jot and tittle before submitting the final report.
4. He examined every jot and tittle of the contract before signing.
5. They changed not a jot or tittle of her original speech.
6. In older manuscripts, jots and tittles were faithfully preserved by dedicated scribes.

Origin and History

Biblical and Linguistic Roots

The two elements of the idiom come from the ancient writing systems referenced in the New Testament. Jot reflects iota—the smallest letter of the Greek alphabet—used there to render the Hebrew yod (also the smallest letter in Hebrew). Tittle denotes a minute pen-stroke, serif, or diacritic-like mark that differentiates similar Hebrew letters (for example, distinguishing ד from ר). In the Gospel of Matthew (5:18), Jesus emphasizes that not even the tiniest letter or stroke of the Law will pass away—an image of maximal textual precision and permanence. This religious image later became a general metaphor in English for scrupulous attention to detail.

Transmission Through English Bible Translations

The expression entered English through successive Bible translations in the 16th and early 17th centuries. William Tyndale’s New Testament (1526) renders Matthew 5:18 with the pairing “one iott or one tytle,” making this the earliest printed record in English of the phrase’s constituents in the now-familiar pairing. Subsequent translations (notably mid-16th-century and early 17th-century) standardized the wording and spelling; the 1611 translation popularized the exact collocation “one jot or one tittle,” which became widely quoted in English religious and literary discourse.

From Scriptural Formula to English Idiom

While the biblical context uses “jot or tittle” to underscore the unalterability of the Law, English usage soon generalized the phrase into an idiom for meticulous completeness: every jot and tittle. The coordinating and (rather than or) helped the expression function as a set phrase outside theology, emphasizing “all the little parts” rather than a single minimal unit. By the later 17th and 18th centuries, sermons, legal writing, and essays commonly used “every jot and tittle” to mean that nothing—however small—was omitted or changed.

Country of Origin

As an English idiom, “jot and tittle” originated in England. Its conceptual imagery is ancient Near Eastern (Hebrew script and the Greek alphabet), but the idiomatic form and its secularized meaning entered general English through English Bible translation and subsequent English prose.

Earliest Printed Record

• 1526 (England): William Tyndale’s New Testament—Matthew 5:18 uses the pairing “one iott or one tytle,” establishing the earliest known printed English record of the expression’s form and sense.
• 1611 (England): The phrasing “one jot or one tittle” becomes the widely recognized wording that later feeds the idiomatic “every jot and tittle.”

Morphology and Semantics of the Components

• Jot: From Greek iōta (ι), calqued into English; semantically generalized from “smallest letter” to “tiny amount.”
• Tittle: From a Latin term for a small written point or stroke; in English, extended to mean any minute textual mark or flourish, then generalized metaphorically to “trifle” or “very small detail.”

Variant Forms and Register

Common variants include “jot or tittle” (echoing scripture), “every jot and tittle” (idiomatic emphasis on exhaustive precision), and pluralized references to “jots and tittles” when discussing scribal practices or meticulous editing. In contemporary prose, the phrase often appears in formal, legalistic, or stylistically elevated contexts; in everyday speech, it can sound either literary or slightly archaic, which speakers sometimes exploit for rhetorical effect.

Cultural Afterlife and Usage

The expression’s durability stems from its vivid materiality: it anchors an abstract claim about completeness in concrete features of writing—letters and strokes. As such, it has been attractive to lawyers, editors, theologians, and authors concerned with exact wording, textual fidelity, and close reading. The idiom survives because it compresses a complex idea—”leave nothing out, change nothing whatsoever”—into a memorable, two-beat phrase.

In summary, “jot and tittle” illustrates how a scriptural image grounded in Greek and Hebrew orthography became, through English translation and reception, a compact idiom for meticulous completeness. Its country of origin as an English idiom is England, with the earliest printed record in 1526 (Tyndale), and a lasting afterlife in legal, literary, and everyday usage as “every jot and tittle.”

Variants

• jot and tittle
• every jot and tittle
• not a jot or tittle
• jots and tittles

Biblical, Latin

Last update: December 27, 2025 4:13 AM