minute

Very small.

Adjective

  1. Very small.
    • They found only minute quantities of chemical residue on his clothing.

    Synonyms: infinitesimal insignificant minuscule tiny trace

    Antonyms: big enormous colossal huge significant tremendous vast

  2. Very careful and exact, giving small details.
    • The lawyer gave the witness a minute examination.
    • The single-imaging optic of the mammalian eye offers some distinct visual advantages. Such lenses can take in photons from a wide range of angles, increasing light sensitivity. They also have high spatial resolution,...

    Synonyms: exact exacting excruciating precise scrupulous accurate careful comprehensive solicitous conscientious exhaustive fastidious groundly in-depth intensive letter-perfect mindful minute particular polished painstaking punctilious rigorous root and branch

Origin

Borrowed from Latin minūtus (“small", "petty”), perfect passive participle of minuō (“make smaller”).

Forms

minuter more minute minutest most minute

Derived

minutely minuteness overminute ultraminute

Noun

  1. A unit of time which is one sixtieth of an hour (sixty seconds).
    • Holonyms: hectosecond < kilosecond < hour < day < week < megasecond < fortnight < month < year < gigasecond < century < kiloannum, kiloyear, millennium < terasecond < mega-annum, megayear < petasecond < giga-annum,...
    • Meronyms: quectosecond < rontosecond < yoctosecond < zeptosecond < attosecond < femtosecond < picosecond < nanosecond < microsecond < millisecond < centisecond < decisecond < second < decasecond
    • You have twenty minutes to complete the test.

    Related: mul:min mul:m mul:M

  2. A short but unspecified time period.
    • give me a minute
    • Wait a minute, I’m not ready yet!

    Synonyms: instant jiffy mo moment sec second tic bat of an eye bit blink of an eye crack eyeblink flash glimpse half a mo jiff jot minute New York minute New York second no time span split-second spurt

  3. A unit of angle equal to one-sixtieth of a degree.
    • We need to be sure these maps are accurate to within one minute of arc.

    Synonyms: minute of arc sexagesm arcminute

  4. A (usually formal) written record of a meeting or a part of a meeting.
    • Let’s look at the minutes of last week’s meeting.
    • The Clerk or 'recording Clerk' drafts a minute and then, or at a later time, reads it to the Meeting. Subsequent contributions are on the wording of the minute only, until it can be accepted by the Meeting. Once the...
  5. A unit of purchase on a telephone or other similar network, especially a cell phone network, roughly equivalent in gross form to sixty seconds' use of the network.
    • If you buy this model, you’ll get 100 free minutes.
  6. A point in time; a moment.
    • I conked out the minute I got home.
    • Tell her, that I some Certainty may bring; / I go this minute to attend the king. - 1675, John Dryden, Aureng-zebe:

    Synonyms: instant moment juncture minute occasion point in time sith time

  7. A nautical or a geographic mile.
  8. An old coin, a half farthing.
  9. A very small part of anything, or anything very small; a jot; a whit.
    • […]according to the Prophecies of him, which were so clear and descended to minutes and circumstances of his passion - 1660, Jeremy Taylor, “Of the Probable or Thinking Conscience.”, in Ductor Dubitantium, or, The Rule...
  10. A fixed part of a module.
  11. A while or a long unspecified period of time.
    • Oh, I ain't heard that song in a minute!
    • “Man, I haven’t seen you in a minute,” he says, smiling still. “Maybe like two, three years ago?” - 2010, Kenneth Ring, Letters from Palestine, page 18:
    • I seen Too$hort up there. Me and $hort ain't talked in a minute. - 2010 June 10, Lil B, Complex.com:

    Synonyms: age spell aeon ages blue moon coon's age crow's age dog's age donkey's years eld eon eternity forever forever and a day interim interlude interval lifetime long haul long run meantime minute month of Sundays while

  12. The distance that can be traveled in a minute.

Origin

From Middle English mynute, minute, mynet, from Old French minute, from Medieval Latin minūta (“60th of an hour; note”). Doublet of menu and menudo.

Forms

minutes

Derived

15-minute city 15 minutes 15 minutes of fame 15 minutes of shame any minute now arcminute a sucker is born every minute at the last minute at the minute by the minute California minute fifteen minutes fifteen minutes of fame five-minute hypothesis football minute for a minute forty minutes of hell four-minute warning hot minute in a minute just a minute last minute last-minute laugh a minute

Verb

  1. Of an event, to write in a memo or the minutes of a meeting.
    • I’ll minute this evening’s meeting.
    • I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing, on this mighty subject. - 1870 [1855 June 27], Charles Dickens, “Administrative Reform”, in Speeches Literary and Social, page 133:
    • On 17 November 1949 Jay minuted Cripps, arguing that trade liberalization on inessentials was socially regressive. - 1995, Edmund Dell, The Schuman Plan and the British Abdication of Leadership in Europe:
  2. To set down a short sketch or note of; to jot down; to make a minute or a brief summary of.
    • The Empress of Russia, with her own hand, minuted an edict for universal tolerance. - 1876 [1834], George Bancroft, History of the United States from the discovery of the American continent, volume VI, pages 28–29:

Forms

minutes minuting minuted

Derived

unminuted