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.

---

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

---

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

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

From Slate ● Sep. 16, 2025

The Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile is set to launch from the Santa Barbara County base sometime between 11:01 p.m.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 18, 2025

We more than doubled our acquisition rate of Polaris submarines—we doubled the production capacity for Minuteman missiles—and increased by 50 percent the number of manned bombers standing ready on a 15 minute alert.

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

The punk band Minutemen titled 1984’s “Double Nickels on the Dime” in response to “I Can’t Drive 55.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2025

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

Here are 10 essential tracks from Lockett’s scene-defining tenure at both SST and New Alliance, the label helmed by the Minutemen.

From New York Times ● Mar. 7, 2023

And part of the idea was to make sure that Redding Tories wouldn’t be able to do to the Continentals what the Minutemen had done to the British at Concord and Lexington six months earlier.

From "My Brother Sam is Dead" by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

Random Word

Spin the wheel and learn a new word!

---