minikin
Americannoun
-
a person or object that is delicate, dainty, or diminutive.
-
a printing type (about 3½ point).
adjective
noun
adjective
Etymology
Origin of minikin
1535–45; < Middle Dutch minneken friend, lover, equivalent to minne love + -ken -kin
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
They are mounted each year with grand ingenuity and minikin budgets.
From The Guardian ● Aug. 7, 2010
No, she is borne on a whispering bejeweled wind of minikin glittering wings.
From Time Magazine Archive
This day Mr. Caesar told me a pretty experiment of his of angling with a minikin, a gut- string varnished over, which keeps it from swelling, and is beyond any hair for strength and smallness.
From The Diary of Samuel Pepys by Braybrooke, Richard Griffin, Baron
With me, my fine treble knave? umh, thou dost tickle minikin as nimbly— Mus.
From A Collection of Old English Plays, Volume 2 by Bullen, A. H. (Arthur Henry)
I and my Tom Thumb of a boat, and my minikin crew, I could well understand, though my hosts spoke in their mother tongue, were the subjects of their incessant and uncontrollable bursts of laughter.
From Rattlin the Reefer by Marryat, Frederick
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
