mincing

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of mince

comparative more mincing · superlative most mincing

1. Affectedly dainty.

   "Is there nothing to eat in the house?" he asked, insolently, as if to a servant. In certain stages of his intoxication he affected the clipped, mincing speech of the towns. Mrs. Morel hated him most in this condition.

   1913, D[avid] H[erbert] Lawrence, “chapter 2”, in Sons and Lovers, London: Duckworth & Co. […], →OCLC

plural mincings

1. countableuncountableThe act by which something is minced.

   After three or four mincings with a coarse blade the product was passed two or three times through a fine blade.

   1931, The Journal of Biological Chemistry, volume 90, page 689

2. countableuncountableAffected dainty speech or movement.

   My father, León Fuertes, was a fag three years; a roaring faggot; a lisping, smirking fruit; […] He put on all the trappings of inversion: the twittered mouthings, the hyper-feminine moues, the languid mincings.

   1975, R. M. Koster, The Dissertation, page 118