Citations:atom

Noun: "a very small amount"

 * 1847 — Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Thomas Cautley Newby (1847), chapter III:
 * “Fellow-martyrs, have at him!  Drag him down, and crush him to atoms, that the place which knows him may know him no more!’”
 * 1870 — Anne M. H. Brewster, Compensation; or, Always a Future, J. B. Lippincott & Co. (1870), page 131:
 * And had I possessed faith in that love, even one atom of hope that Octave would make her happy or that her own love could continue for him, I might have encouraged her confidence, little as I approve of confidences of such sacred feeling;
 * 1871 — Isabella Macdonald Alden (as "Pansy"), Three People, Western Tract and Book Society (1873), page 325:
 * "I have hardly the faintest atom of hope," answered this honest, earnest man.
 * 1877 — R. D. Blackmore, Erema; Or, My Father's Sin, Chapter XXVI:
 * "I have not an atom of doubt about it. His flight and persistent dread of trial puzzle me beyond imagination. Of his life he was perfectly reckless, except, at least, for my sake."
 * 1896 — Felicia Buttz Clark, Katharine's Experiment, Eaton & Mains (1896), page 255:
 * I wonder what she will say when she gets that letter. I do not suppose there is an atom of hope for me, anyway.
 * 1997 — Wilfred Bion, War Memoirs 1917-1919 (ed. Francesca Bion), Karnac Books (1997), ISBN 1855751534, page 62:
 * We simply couldn't get an atom of sense out of him.
 * 2005 — Catherine Gildiner, Seduction, Vintage Canada (2005), ISBN 9780676976540, page 131:
 * If I didn't pull myself together and fight both of those guys, I'd wind up back in prison saying, "I knew they were framing me, but I tucked away this atom of hope that they were on my side."
 * 2006 — Melodie Bowsher, My Lost and Found Life, Bloomsbury U.S.A. Children's Books (2007), ISBN 9781582347363, page 254:
 * As I thought about her, the little atom of hope inside me seemed to shrink.

Noun: "age group division in hockey"

 * 1993 - Cosmo Castaldi, P.J. Bishop, Earl Hoerner, Safety in Ice Hockey, Volume 2, page 121
 * In minor ice hockey, that is from Atom (10 to 11 years old) to Midget (16 to 17 years old), players are regrouped in 2-year age categories with January 1 being the cutoff date.
 * 2012 - Steven Overman, Kelly Sagert, Icons of Women's Sport, page 458
 * When Manon Rheaume reached the Atom level, she persuaded her parents to send her to hockey camp.
 * 2018 - Angie Abdou, Home Ice: Reflections of a Reluctant Hockey Mom, page 4
 * At nine years old, Oliver has already played hockey through two years of pre-Novice, one year of Novice, and his first year of Atom.