DIMINUTIVE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does diminutive mean? 

• DIMINUTIVE (noun)
  The noun DIMINUTIVE has 1 sense:

1. a word that is formed with a suffix (such as -let or -kin) to indicate smallness

  Familiarity information: DIMINUTIVE used as a noun is very rare.

• DIMINUTIVE (adjective)
  The adjective DIMINUTIVE has 1 sense:

1. very small

  Familiarity information: DIMINUTIVE used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DIMINUTIVE (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A word that is formed with a suffix (such as -let or -kin) to indicate smallness

Classified under:

Nouns denoting communicative processes and contents

Hypernyms ("diminutive" is a kind of...):

word (a unit of language that native speakers can identify)

Derivation:

diminutive (very small)

• DIMINUTIVE (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Very small

Synonyms:

bantam; diminutive; flyspeck; lilliputian; midget; petite; tiny

Context example:

the flyspeck nation of Bahrain moved toward democracy

Similar:

little; small (limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent)

Derivation:

diminutive (a word that is formed with a suffix (such as -let or -kin) to indicate smallness)

diminutiveness (the property of being very small in size)

 Context examples 

This research demonstrates the variety of ways these diminutive organisms can alter, and sometimes impede, the biological carbon pump.

(Research provides new view of the critical role of plankton in marine carbon storage, National Science Foundation)

It might have pleased fortune, to have let the Lilliputians find some nation, where the people were as diminutive with respect to them, as they were to me.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

The diminutive moon, only 20 miles (about 34 kilometers) across, is 1/1000th the mass of Proteus (which is 260 miles, or about 418 kilometers, across).

(Tiny Neptune Moon Spotted by Hubble May Have Broken from Larger Moon, NASA)

Preliminary analysis suggests the diminutive galaxy weighs in at no more than 3 billion solar masses (roughly 1/100th the mass of our fully grown Milky Way galaxy).

(NASA's Great Observatories Team Up to Find Magnified and Stretched Image of Distant Galaxy, NASA)

A neoplastic gemistocytic astrocyte characterized by a diminutive size, a single, eccentric nucleus, and a cytoplasmic droplet of eosinophilic material.

(Mini-Gemistocyte, NCI Thesaurus)

She was rather diminutive altogether.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

The equipages are as varied as the company and attract as much attention, especially the low basket barouches in which ladies drive themselves, with a pair of dashing ponies, gay nets to keep their voluminous flounces from overflowing the diminutive vehicles, and little grooms on the perch behind.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

I considered it a narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper than what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves, having sought them in vain among foxglove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at length made up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of England to some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdignag being, in my creed, solid parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the little fields, houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny cows, sheep, and birds of the one realm; and the corn-fields forest-high, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men and women, of the other.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

The queen, giving great allowance for my defectiveness in speaking, was, however, surprised at so much wit and good sense in so diminutive an animal.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

However, in my thoughts I could not sufficiently wonder at the intrepidity of these diminutive mortals, who durst venture to mount and walk upon my body, while one of my hands was at liberty, without trembling at the very sight of so prodigious a creature as I must appear to them.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)