Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Minuscule |
MinusculeAdjective1. Of or relating to a small cursive script developed from uncial; 7th to 9th centuries. 2. Lowercase; "little a"; "small a"; "e.e.cummings's poetry is written all in minuscule letters". 3. Very small; "a minuscule kitchen"; "a minuscule amount of rain fell". Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Etymology: Minuscule \Mi*nus"cule\, noun. [Latin expression minusculus rather small, from minus less: compare to the French expression minuscule.]. (references) |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. When written quickly with a pen, these tended to rounder and simpler forms, like uncials. It is from these that the first minuscule hands developed, the half-uncials and cursive minuscule, which no longer stay bound between a pair of lines.
These in turn formed the foundations for carolingian minuscule, developed by Alcuin for use in the court of Charlemagne, which quickly spread across Europe. Here for the first time it became common to mix both majuscule and minuscule letters in a single text.
Traditionally more important letters - those beginning sentences or nouns - were made larger; now they were written in a different script, although there was no fixed capitalization system until the early 18th century (and even then all nouns were capitalized, a system still followed in German but not in English).
Similar developments have taken place in other alphabets. The minuscule script for the Greek alphabet has its origins in the seventh century and acquired its quadrilinear form in the eighth century. Over time, uncial letter forms were increasingly mixed into the script. The earliest dated Greek minuscule text is the Uspenski Gospels (MS 461) in the year 835. The modern practice of capitalizing every sentence seems to be imported.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Minuscule."
Synonyms: MinusculeSynonyms: little (adj), miniscule (adj), minuscular (adj), small (adj). (additional references) |
| Antonym: majuscule (adj). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Letter | Noun: letter; character; hieroglyphic; (writing); type; (printing); capitals; digraph, trigraph; ideogram, ideograph; majuscule, minuscule; majuscule, minuscule; alphabet, ABC, abecedary, christcross-row. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Minuscule |
| English words defined with "minuscule": little ♦ miniscule ♦ small. (references) |
| Non-English Usage: "Minuscule" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. French (diminutive, lower case letter, midget, minuscule, minuteness, small letter, teeny, tiny). |
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Subject | Topic | Quote |
Health | In highly allergic people even minuscule amounts of a food allergen (for example, 1/44,000 of a peanut kernel) can prompt an allergic reaction. (references) | |
Economic History | Bulgaria | Bulgarian capital markets are minuscule and other mechanisms for long-term finance (banks, insurance companies, and pension funds) are weak or underdeveloped. (references) |
Korea | A variety of barriers to the importation of automobiles has limited both U.S. and European exporters to a minuscule share (0.4%) of the booming 1.5-million-unit domestic Korean car market. (references) | |
Political Economy | HONG KONG | The Hong Kong government has minuscule public debt. (references) |
Worker Rights | Comoros | There are no safety or health standards for the minuscule manufacturing sector. (references) |
Afghanistan | Many of Kabul's industrial workers were unemployed due to the destruction or abandonment of the city's minuscule manufacturing base. (references) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits. | ||
| "Minuscule" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 95.60% of the time. "Minuscule" is used about 91 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 95.6% | 87 | 35,390 |
| Lexical Verb (base form) | 4.4% | 4 | 175,879 |
| Total | 100.00% | 91 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
minuscule petit peu | 4 |
minuscule | 4 |
carolingian minuscule | 3 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "minuscule"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | me germa të vogla, i vockël (fine, minute, pettifogging, picayune, piddling, pinpoint, potty, puny, slight, teeny, tiny, trifling, wee, wispy). (various references) | |
Arabic | حرف صغير, صغير (baby, diminutive, infinitesimal, little, lower case, minute, niggling, petty, remote, short, small, teeny, tiny, tiny bit, wee, young). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | малка буква, минискул, дребна буква. (various references) | |
Dutch | kleine letter (lower case letter, small letter). (various references) | |
Farsi | مصغر, کوچک (Bantam, Dinky, Little, Miniature, Minute, Petty, Pocket, Puny, Runty, Short, Small, Teeny, Thumbnail, Weeny), حرف کوچک , خرد (Inconsiderable, Intellect, Little, Part, Petty, Reason, Retail, Tiny, Wisdom), جزءی (Immaterial, Imperceptible, Inappreciative, Inconsiderable, Inconspicuous, Little, Minute, Negligible, Nip, Nominal, Paltry, Partial, Peppercorn, Petty, Piddling, Remote, Retail, Rush, Small, Snatch, Trivial, Vain), ریز (Atomic, Fine, Minute, Pony, Shred, Small, Snippet, Tiny, Wee, Weeny). (various references) | |
French | minuscule (midget, minuteness). (various references) | |
German | Minuskul, winzig (diminutive, diminutively, imperceptible, infinitesimal, lilliputian, midget, minikin, minute, pigmy, teenily, teeny, tinily, tiny, undersized, wee, weely, weeny), Kleinbuchstabe (lower-case letter, small letter), Gemeine (common soldier, lower case). (various references) | |
Greek | μικρά γράμματα (small print), μικροσκοπικόσ (diminutive, microscopic, microscopical, minute, tiny), μικροσκοπικός (minute, tiny). (various references) | |
Hebrew | זעיר (a little while, diminutive, fiddling, inappreciable, petite, small, teeny, tiny, trivial, wee), זערורי (minute, tiny). (various references) | |
Hungarian | pici (diminutive, mite, teeny, tiddley, tiny, toy, wee), kurrens, kisbetû, kis betű, apróbetû, apró betű, apró (diminutive, ducky, fine, lilliputian, midget, minikin, minute, nice, pillbox, Pinkie, puny, pygmy, slight, small, subtle, tiny, toy). (various references) | |
Italian | minuscolo (diminutive, diminutively, lilliputian, little, lowercase, midget, minute, runty, small, tiny, undersized, wee). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 微量 (extremely small quantity, minuscule amount). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | びりょう (bridge of the nose, extremely small quantity, minuscule amount). (various references) | |
Manx | mynphenneyraght, myn (detailed, small, small ground). (various references) | |
Pig Latin | inusculemay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | letra minúscula. (various references) | |
Romanian | minusculã, minuscul (midget, minute, small, tiny). (various references) | |
Russian | крохотный (diminutive, teeny, tiny), минускул. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | minuskula. (various references) | |
Spanish | minucioso (meticulous, minute, probing, searching, severe, thorough), minúsculo (lower case, minute, tiny, wee), minúscula (lower case, small letter). (various references) | |
Swedish | mycket liten (diminutive, fat, infinitesimal, scant, teeny, tiny, wee, weeny), minuskel. (various references) | |
Turkish | miniskül, minik (diminutive, minute, petit, small, teeny, teeny-weeny, tiny), ufacık (dinky, inappreciable, minute, poky, small, smallish, teeny, teeny-weeny, tiny, very small, wee, weeny, wispy), küçük harfle yazılı, küçük harfle el yazısı, küçük harf (lower case, small letter), küçük (baby, bantam, child, fiddling, inconsiderable, infant, infra-, junior, kid, little, micro-, mini, mini-, minor, nano-, not healthy, one horse, paltry, peanut, petit, petty, piddling, poky, remote, slight, small, snug, tiddly, trifling, trivial, undersized, young, younger). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | мінускульний, мінускул. (various references) | |
Vietnamese | rất nhỏ (infinitesimal, teeny, teeny-weeny, wee), nhỏ xíu (minikin, tiny). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "minuscule": minuscules. (additional references) | |
| |
"Minuscule" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: minascule, minescule, miniscules, miniuscula, minscule, minucule, minuscle, minuscul, minuscules. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "minuscule" (pronounced mi"nuskyuw'l) |
| 4 | -k y uw' l | molecule, ridicule, saccule. |
| 3 | -y uw' l | vestibule. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "c-e-i-l-m-n-s-u-u" | |
-2 letters: leucins, mesclun, nucleus. | |
-3 letters: cesium, climes, clines, cumins, cumuli, incuse, leucin, limens, linums, lumens, lunies, minces, miscue, mucins, muesli, muscle, muslin, neumic, nuclei, simnel, sluice, uncles. | |
-4 letters: ceils, cines, clime, cline, clues, culms, cumin, ileum, ileus, incus, lenis, liens, lieus, limen, limes, limns, lines, linum, luces, lumen, lunes, melic, menus, mesic, miens, miles. | |
| Words containing the letters "c-e-i-l-m-n-s-u-u" | |
+1 letter: minuscules. | |
+2 letters: unmasculine. | |
+3 letters: contumelious, micronucleus. | |
+4 letters: impecuniously. | |
+5 letters: contumeliously, cumulativeness, cumulonimbuses, meticulousness, micronucleuses, miraculousness, supermasculine, ultramasculine. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Commercial | 5. Quotations: Non-fiction 6. Usage Frequency 7. Expressions: Internet 8. Translations: Modern | 9. Derivations 10. Rhymes 11. Anagrams 12. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
