Did you know?
Minuscule derives from the Latin adjective minusculus, which means "rather small." The minuscule spelling is consistent with the word's etymology, but since the 19th century, people have also been spelling it miniscule, perhaps because they associate it with the combining form mini- and words such as minimal and minimum. Usage commentators generally consider the miniscule spelling an error, but it is widely used in reputable and carefully edited publications and is accepted as a legitimate variant in some dictionaries.
Synonyms
Examples of minuscule in a Sentence
Janet Wilson, ProPublica, 22 Mar. 2024
Only a minuscule percentage of Americans would meet that net-worth threshold of $5 million—in fact, the average yearly salary in the U.S. today is $59,384.
—Christine Emba, The Atlantic, 1 Apr. 2024
The bill also includes a 6 percent cut to foreign aid programs, already a minuscule slice of federal spending, and a Republican change to the law that prohibits nonofficial U.S. flags from flying atop American embassies.
—Jacob Bogage, Washington Post, 23 Mar. 2024
This minuscule three-game sample size isn’t unprecedented even for him.
—Danny Emerman, The Mercury News, 29 Feb. 2024
The bill also includes a 6 percent cut to foreign aid programs, already a minuscule slice of federal spending, and a Republican change to the law to prohibits nonofficial U.S. flags from flying atop American embassies.
—Jacob Bogage, Washington Post, 22 Mar. 2024
Anya Taylor-Joy wore a minuscule Jaeger-LeCoultre 101 Reine watch—a rare diminutive piece on a night replete with big rocks.
—Milena Lazazzera, Vogue, 11 Mar. 2024
That’s when — about 100 feet from the entrance of the cave — the team discovered a minuscule creature.
—Moira Ritter, Miami Herald, 7 Mar. 2024
At 1,000th the average width of a human hair, the minuscule bits can migrate through the tissues of the digestive tract or lungs into the bloodstream.
—Sandee Lamotte, CNN, 6 Mar. 2024
Kathryn Romeyn, Travel + Leisure, 17 July 2023
New quote-tweets started to pour in, each one putting me in front of another audience of followers, some minuscule and others quite large.
—Willy Staley, New York Times, 18 Apr. 2023
But Transit of Venus also concerns itself with the minuscule—that tiny dot of Venus moving across the vast sun—in the miscalculations and determination of one young woman from the far side of the world.
—Hillary Kelly, The New Republic, 4 Jan. 2023
In 2019, Ukraine sent roughly 200,000 tons of steel to the US, minuscule compared to the 26.3 million tons of steel that the US imported in total that year.
—Samanth Subramanian, Quartz, 9 May 2022
This finally revealed a Latin inscription written in cursive Carolingian minuscule.
—Jennifer Ouellette, Ars Technica, 29 Apr. 2022
Parents who were predisposed not to vaccinate their child tended to dismiss the threat of serious illness from Covid as minuscule, saying that children who became seriously ill most likely had underlying conditions.
—New York Times, 30 Oct. 2021
Parents who were predisposed not to vaccinate their child tended to dismiss the threat of serious illness from COVID as minuscule, saying that children who became seriously ill most likely had underlying conditions.
—BostonGlobe.com, 30 Oct. 2021
Those injuries made their margin for error minuscule, and that would be the margin that decided their season.
—Ben Cohen, WSJ, 21 June 2021
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'minuscule.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Articles Related to minuscule
Dictionary Entries Near minuscule
Cite this Entry
“Minuscule.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/minuscule. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.
Copy Citation
Share