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largely superseded by the 18th century `look after the pennies (originally,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