''minim'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260723122144-00-⌔

minim - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Noun

minim (plural minims)

• (music) A half note, drawn as a semibreve with a stem.
• A unit of volume, in the Imperial and U.S. customary systems,${}^1$ ⁄${}_{60}$ fluid drachm. Approximately equal to 1 drop, 62 μL or 0.9 grain (weight) of water.
  • ✤ He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of the red tincture and added one of the powders.¹
• A short vertical stroke used in handwriting.
• Anything very minute; applied to animalcula and the like.
  • ✤ the minims of existence
• (zoology) The smallest kind of worker in a leaf-cutter ant colony.
• A little man or being; a dwarf.
  • ✤ These as a line thir${}^{[sic]}$ long dimension drew,
    Streaking the ground with sinuous trace;
    not all Minims of Nature; some of Serpent kinde
    Wondrous in length and corpulence […]²
• A small fish; a minnow.
• A short poetical encomium.
  • ✤ To make one minim of thy poor handmaid³

Etymology

Borrowed from French minime.

Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈmɪ.nɪm/
  • Audio (Southern England): 🔊
  • Audio (US): 🔊

Printed 2026-07-23.

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Footnotes

1. 1886, Robert Louis Stephenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: ↩

2. 1667, John Milton, “”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a] nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a] nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC: ↩

3. 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book VI, Canto X”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC: ↩