Definition
adjSmall, not large, limited, Small, limited in size.
Sentence Examples
"What's the matter?" asked the little white rabbit.
I slept a little during lunch break because I was so tired.
She seemed a little afraid of going inside.
Word Origin & History
From Middle English litel, litell, luitel, lutel, lutil, luytel, from Old English lȳtel, lyttel, from Proto-West Germanic *lūtil (“little”), from *lūtan (“to bow down, lout”), from Proto-Germanic *lūtaną (“to bow down, lout”), from Proto-Indo-European *lewd- (“to bend, crouch, duck”), equivalent to lout + -le.
Cognates
Cognate with Yola lethel, litha, lithel, lythea (“little”), North Frisian letj (“little, small”), Saterland Frisian litje (“little, small”), West Frisian lyts (“little, small”), Dutch luttel (“few, little, mere”), German lütt, lützel (“little, small”), Low German lütt, lüttje (“little, small”), Danish liden, lille (“little, small”), Elfdalian litn (“small”), Faroese lítil (“little, small”), Icelandic lítill (“little, small”), Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish liten (“little, small”), Crimean Gothic lista (“insufficient, very little”), Gothic 𐌻𐌴𐌹𐍄𐌹𐌻𐍃 (leitils, “little, small”); also Albanian lus, lut (“to beg, plead, request”), Lithuanian liūdnas (“sad, sorrowful”), Bulgarian and Macedonian луд (lud, “crazy, insane, mad”), Serbo-Croatian лу̑д, lȗd (“crazy”). Related also to Old English lūtan (“to bow, bend low”); and perhaps to Old English lytiġ (“deceitful”), Gothic 𐌻𐌹𐌿𐍄𐍃 (liuts, “deceitful”). More at lout.
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
""You are a little, little man," she proclaimed, staring obviously below my waist as she pronounced the second "little." It was almost disappointing. I'd heard that one before, but it still left a new scar each time."
— 2017, David Russell, Winston Patrick Mystery 2-Book Bundle, page 70:
"Urania speaks with darken’d brow:
‘Thou pratest here where thou art least;
This faith has many a purer priest,
And many an abler voice than thou: […]’"
— 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto XXXVII”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 57:
"In the forties, hurdy-gurdy men could still be heard in all those East Coast cities with strong Italian neighbourhoods: New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston. A visit to Baltimore’s Little Italy at that time was like a trip to Italy itself."
— 2004, Barry Miles, Zappa: A Biography, edition, published 2005, →ISBN, page 5:
"“The theatre was bought by the Croatian immigrants as so many immigrants came here in the ’30s and mostly for mining jobs, but in Schumacher itself it was called little Zagreb, and Zagreb is the capital city of Croatia. There were so many of them that they wanted to have their own little community, so they bought the theatre and they renovated it at that time, remodelled it and made it into a Croatian Hall,” she explained."
— 2020, Richa Bhosale, “Croatian Hall in need of repairs to remain open”, in Timmins Daily Press:
"He is the embodiment of Fleet Street bullying, using his newspaper to peddle his Little-England, curtain-twitching Alan Partridgesque view of the world, which manages to combine sanctimonious, pompous moralising and prurient, voyeuristic, judgmental obsession"
— 2012, Steve Coogan, Comedian Steve Coogan on Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre: