mickle \MIK-uhl\,
adjective:
Archaic. great; large; much.
The shipmaster laughed: "Friend," said he, "we can thee mickle thanks for all that thou biddest us. And wot well that we be no lifters or sea—thieves to take thy livelihood from thee."
-- William Morris, "The Wood Beyond the World," 1894
If I to-day die not with Frenchmen's rage,/To-morrow I shall die with mickle age…
-- William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 1, 1591
Mickle came to English from the Old English term micel, mycel meaning "great," "big," or "much." It comes from a Proto-Indo-European root meg- meaning "great," or "large."
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