diminutive

comparative more diminutive · superlative most diminutive · alternative abbreviation dim.

1. Very small.

   Mrs. Washington ("Oh, la, call me Martha, Boys") is a diminutive woman with a cheerful rather than happy air, who seems to bustle even when standing still..

   1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 229

   1 more example

   Roman Sharonov rose unchallenged to head a corner wide, while diminutive winger Gokdeniz Karadeniz ghosted in with a diving header from the edge of the six-yard box that was acrobatically kept out by Gomes.

   2011 October 20, Jamie Lillywhite, “Tottenham 1 - 0 Rubin Kazan”, in BBC Sport

   Synonyms: lilliputian, tiny · Antonyms: huge, gigantic

2. obsoleteServing to diminish.

   1 more example

   1711, Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 3rd Earl of Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times, 1714 edition republished by Gregg International Publishers, 1968, Volume 3, Miscellany 3, Chapter 2, p. 175, They cou’d, perhaps, even embrace POVERTY contentedly, rather than submit to any thing diminutive either of their inward Freedom or national Liberty.

3. grammarOf or pertaining to, or creating a word form expressing smallness, youth, unimportance, or endearment.

   Antonyms: augmentative

plural diminutives · alternative abbreviation dim.

1. grammarA word form expressing smallness, youth, unimportance, or endearment.

   Booklet, the diminutive of book, means ‘small book’.

   3 more examples

   But I was frightfully fond of the universe and wanted to address it by a diminutive. I often did so; and it never seemed to mind.

   1908, G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

   When we come to occupative names, we are again confronted by crowds of diminutives.

   1916, Ernest Weekley, Surnames, page 287

   The British use the term “fidlets”, a diminutive of “Fid”, which in turn is an acronym for Falkland Island Dependencies, the former name of the British Antarctic Survey.

   2024 June 20, Eva Corlett, “Fidlets, fingies and riding a doo: study sheds light on Antarctic English slang”, in The Guardian

   Synonyms: nomen deminutivum · Antonyms: augmentative

2. governmentThe smallest, thinnest version of a traditional heraldic ordinary ("geometric shape on a shield"), often used to represent multiple instances of a charge or to modify a main, central, and larger charge; not itself modifiable.