minuscule means written in minuscules, lowercase. It carries an Arena rating of 1355, earned across 3 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, minuscule ranks #1,292 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound, #1,485 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words, #1,565 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #3,805 of 17,163 for Funniest Words.
minuscule is pronounced /ˈmɪnɪˌskjuːl/.
Why “minuscule” is a great word
Extremely small; tiny. From French minuscule, from Latin minuscula (feminine of minusculus, "rather small"), from minus ("less") + -culus (diminutive suffix); first attested in English in 1705. Unlike "minute" (which implies a fine, intricate smallness demanding scrutiny) or "infinitesimal" (which denotes a vanishing, almost theoretical limit), minuscule describes a modest, practical, and often disappointing smallness. It is the size of the type in a legal disclaimer, the single, lonely star visible through a light-polluted sky, or the almost imperceptible hesitation before a lie—small enough to overlook, yet a testament to the ordinary scale of our diminishment.
Etymology
From French minuscule, from Latin minuscula, feminine of minusculus (“rather less, rather small”), from minus (“less, smaller”) + -culus (diminutive suffix).
adj
- Written in minuscules, lowercase.
- Written in minuscule handwriting style.
- Very small; tiny.e.g.“a minuscule dot”
noun
- A lowercase letter.
- Either of the two medieval handwriting styles minuscule cursive and Caroline minuscule.e.g.“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:
- A letter in these styles.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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