tiny
Americanadjective
-
tinier,
comparative
-
tiniest
superlative
adjective
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Adjectives
Etymology
Origin of tiny
First recorded in 1590–1600; late Middle English tine “very small” + -y 1; further origin uncertain
Explanation
Tiny means very small. Atoms are tiny. Hawaii is tiny, in comparison to the continental US. If you wear a size five shoe as an adult, you could be said to have tiny feet. Throughout the world there are stories about tiny mythical heroes, such as Tom Thumb, a tiny baby, who grew into a tiny child then a man so tiny he was no larger than an average man's thumb. One of the things that people love about doll houses are seeing all the artifacts we live with day to day replicated in miniature, or tiny, form.
Vocabulary lists containing tiny
It's the Little Things: Synonyms for "Small"
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"Eleven," Vocabulary from the short story
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"Imperfect Me"
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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.
See Examples For:
Instead of allowing lithium to collect unevenly in certain areas, the tiny structures provide a more uniform distribution of locations where it can settle.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 28, 2026
In 1986, the Challenger exploded during launch because of a tiny rubber O-ring.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 28, 2026
The Mississippi native, who lives in an antebellum-style mansion in a tiny and heavily white community east of Memphis, has loaned his congressional campaign $1.5 million.
From Salon ● Oct. 28, 2026
As recently as 2001, when China joined the World Trade Organization, only a tiny elite in China could afford a family car.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 28, 2026
There was definitely writing there—but so tiny I had to climb again onto the cot and hold the paper close to the shaded bulb.
From "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom
These ultrathin materials, made from just one or a few atomic layers, have been viewed as promising candidates for building even tinier electronic devices.
From Science Daily ● May 9, 2026
“Institutional investors are a tiny share of the market, and a tinier share of the total U.S. housing market. There is not good enough evidence that institutional investors drive up home prices,” he added.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 7, 2026
The bigger issue is that U.S. automakers have tried tinier cars before, and they didn’t take off.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 13, 2025
But I think it’s Trello, a much tinier service, that tells the most concise story of how technology companies are now looking at their users.
From Slate ● Aug. 4, 2025
Its powerful magnetic field, amplified during the collapse, traps charged particles rather as the much tinier magnetic field of Jupiter does.
From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan
To type up some of this review, I turned the Duo into the world’s tiniest laptop.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2026
Half a century after the last "Cod Wars" with Britain, many Icelanders are reluctant to yield even the tiniest bit of control of their hard-won national waters to Brussels.
From Barron's ● Aug. 26, 2026
Diamond Light Source - a giant machine, half a kilometre around, that produces X-rays far brighter than the Sun to see the tiniest building blocks of matter.
From BBC ● Jul. 9, 2026
Lacunar stroke develops when the brain's tiniest blood vessels are damaged by a condition known as small vessel disease.
From Science Daily ● Jul. 3, 2026
“Just the tiniest of sips,” she told him.
From "Norse Mythology" by Neil Gaiman
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Get a wordDefinitions 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.
