Minuscule Meaning
/ˈmɪnɪˌskjuːl/Definition, CEFR level C1, pronunciation, examples, and quiz.
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Definition
adjExtremely small.
nounA lowercase letter.
Sentence Examples
The chances of success are minuscule.
She found a minuscule error in the code.
The amount of arsenic in the water is minuscule but significant.
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The writing was so ____ that I needed a magnifying glass to read it.
Word Origin & History
From French minuscule, from Latin minuscula, feminine of minusculus (“rather less, rather small”), from minus (“less, smaller”) + -culus (diminutive suffix).
Literary Quotations & Historical Citations
"By the eighth century, Irish scribes had refined everyday cursive writing in minuscule to allow its use for the production of quality vellum books."
— 2001, Steven Roger Fischer, History of Writing, Reaktion Books, →ISBN, page 254:
"In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%."
— 2013 May 25, “No hiding place”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8837, page 74:
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CEFR Practice Quiz
The writing was so ____ that I needed a magnifying glass to read it.