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Minuscule comes from the Latin adjective minusculus ("somewhat smaller" or "fairly small"), which in turn pairs the base of minus ("smaller") with -culus, a diminutive suffix (that is, one indicating small size). The minuscule spelling is consistent with the word’s etymology, but that didn’t stop English speakers from adopting the variant spelling miniscule, likely because they associated it with the combining form mini- and such words 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. (Our own dictionary identifies miniscule as a "disputed spelling variant.")
Synonyms of minuscule
Examples of minuscule in a Sentence
Megan Hughes, Better Homes & Gardens, 8 Nov. 2025
Budgets for these projects are minuscule (generally, $100,000 to $300,000 per series), and platforms release a lot of them, experimenting to see what resonates with viewers.
—Katie Kilkenny, HollywoodReporter, 5 Nov. 2025
The technique starts with a minuscule sample of tissue; for example, in the makeshift lab at the hotel in Malles Venosta, researchers dissecting moths for sequencing also removed, for DNA barcoding, a leg of each moth whose species was not conclusively known.
—Glenn Zorpette, IEEE Spectrum, 4 Nov. 2025
His sack rate over the past two games is a minuscule 3 percent.
—Nate Atkins, New York Times, 3 Nov. 2025
See All Example Sentences for minuscule
Cite this Entry
“Minuscule.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/minuscule. Accessed 14 Nov. 2025.
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