APAD: Many a little makes a mickle

Meaning:

   Many small amounts accumulate to make a large amount.

 

Background:

   A mickle, or as they prefer it in Scotland, a muckle, means `great or large

   in size'. Apart from `many a little (or pickle) makes a mickle' the words

   only now remain in use in UK place-names, like Muckle Flugga in Shetland

   (which amply lives up to its translated name of `large, steep-sided island')

   and Mickleover in Derbyshire (listed in the Domesday Book as Magna Oufra -

   `large village on the hill').

 

   The proverbial phrase `many a little makes a mickle' has now itself been

   largely superseded by the 18th century `look after the pennies (originally,

   `take care of the pence'), and the pounds will look after (`take care of')

   themselves'.

 

   It was taken across the Atlantic by George Washington, who included it in

   Writings, 1793:

 

     "A Scotch [steady on George, I think they prefer to be called Scots]

     addage, than which nothing in nature is more true `that many mickles make a

     muckle'."

 

   The phrase's variant form `many a mickle makes a muckle' is also sometimes

   heard. This 20th century version is actually nonsensical as it derives from

   the misapprehension that mickle and muckle, rather than meaning the same

   thing, mean `small' and `large' respectively.

 

- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]

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I've never seen `mickle' outside of the phrase and just recently noticed its

alter ego `muckle.' It's good the last two paragraphs reassured us that `mickle'

and `muckle' are the same.

 

The author Shelby van Pelt must have been determined to bring the latter back in

circulation beyond proverbs and name places as in her wildly successful novel

``Remarkably Bright Creatures,'' she had Ethan, the Scot grocer in Sowell Bay,

an imaginary port by the Puget Sound in WA, call an out-of-town estate lawyer

`muckle teeth.' Brilliant, I think.