Word of the Day

: April 21, 2014

minutia

noun muh-NOO-shee-uh

What It Means

: a minute or minor detail

minutia in Context

The self-help book said it was easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of everyday life and fail to notice important opportunities.

"Jackson, though, is smart enough to hire people to figure out salary caps and contract minutia." - From a column by Tim Dahlberg via the Associated Press, March 18, 2014

Did You Know?

"Minutia" was borrowed into English in the late 18th century from the Latin plural noun "minutiae," meaning "trifles" or "details" and derived from the singular noun "minutia," meaning "smallness." In English, "minutia" is most often used in the plural as either "minutiae" or, on occasion, as simply "minutia" (as illustrated in our second example sentence). Latin "minutia," incidentally, comes from "minutus," an adjective meaning "small" that was created from the verb "minuere," meaning "to lessen." A familiar descendant of "minutus" is "minute."