Minuteman

American  

[min-it-man] / ˈmɪn ɪtˌmæn /

noun

Minutemen plural

1. (sometimes lowercase) a member of a group of American militiamen just before and during the Revolutionary War who held themselves in readiness for instant military service.

2. a U.S. intercontinental ballistic missile with three stages, powered by solid-propellant rocket engines.

3. a member of a small, secret, ultraconservative organization formed into armed groups for the declared purpose of conducting guerrilla warfare against a communist invasion of the U.S.

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Minuteman British  

/ ˈmɪnɪtˌmæn /

noun

1. (sometimes not capital) (in the War of American Independence) a colonial militiaman who promised to be ready to fight at one minute's notice

2. a US three-stage intercontinental ballistic missile

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Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• Minutemen
  plural

Etymology

Origin of Minuteman

An Americanism dating back to 1765–75; minute ¹ + man

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Minuteman Minutemen

Caroline, who spent her last year at Harvard Business School taking classes on buying and operating small businesses, took over running Minuteman after Nat’s job started.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 17, 2026

Ed Bouquillon noticed more students from affluent families at Minuteman Regional Vocational Technical High School in upscale Lexington as parents’ attitudes shifted.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 28, 2025

If you go back 20 to 30 years earlier than that, it was the B-52 and the Minuteman.

From Salon ● Dec. 7, 2025

The Minuteman missiles are old; they were first deployed in 1970.

From Slate ● Sep. 16, 2025

This year the combined force levels planned under our new Defense budget—including nearly three hundred additional Polaris and Minuteman missiles—have been precisely calculated to insure the continuing strength of our nuclear deterrent.

From State of the Union Address by Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald)

This year’s lineup on the stage includes Minutemen bassist Mike Watt, Jason DeVore of Authority Zero and a special set from Lindberg himself.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 30, 2026

Rat was doing sound at the club Safari Sam’s in Huntington Beach in the mid-1980s when the Minutemen were onstage.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 22, 2024

The Minutemen are 50 years old, and while they’ve been modified many times, they will probably need to be mothballed someday.

From Slate ● Feb. 2, 2024

“I said, Hey, let’s forget about this multitrack stuff,” he recalled in the Minutemen documentary.

From New York Times ● Mar. 7, 2023

But the engineers also spent time designing strategic rockets under defense contracts, something perhaps less politically correct to advertise: Trident missiles, ICBMs, Minutemen.

From "A Deadly Wandering: A Mystery, a Landmark Investigation, and the Astonishing Science of Attention in the Digital Age" by Matt Richtel