Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Being below average in size.
- adjective Being below average in quantity or extent.
- adjective Limited in importance or significance; trivial.
- adjective Having limited position, influence, or status; minor.
- adjective Unpretentious; modest.
- adjective Not fully grown; very young.
- adjective Narrow in outlook; petty.
- adjective Having been belittled; humiliated.
- adjective Diluted; weak. Used of alcoholic beverages.
- adjective Lacking force or volume.
- adjective Lowercase.
- adverb In small pieces.
- adverb Without loudness or forcefulness; softly.
- adverb In a small manner.
- noun A part that is smaller or narrower than the rest.
- noun Small things considered as a group.
- noun Chiefly British Small items of clothing.
from The Century Dictionary.
- To make little or less; lessen.
- Slender; thin; narrow.
- Little in size; not great or large; of less than average or ordinary dimensions; diminutive.
- Little or inferior in degree, quantity, amount, duration, number, value, etc.; short (in time or extent); narrow, etc.
- Low, as applied to station, social position, etc.
- Being of little moment, weight, or importance; trivial; insignificant; petty; trifling: as, it is a small matter or thing; a small subject.
- Of little genius, ability, or force of character; petty; insignificant.
- Containing little of the principal quality, or little strength; weak: as, small beer.
- Thin: applied to tones or to the voice.
- Gentle; soft; faint; not loud.
- Characterized by littleness of mind or character; evincing little worth; narrow-minded; sordid; selfish; ungenerous; mean; base; unworthy.
- Having little property; carrying on a business on a small scale.
- Meager in quantity, as a body of water: an anglers' epithet: as, the water is too small to use the fly.
- Noting the condition of the cutting edge of a saw as condensed by hammering: same as
tight . - Unostentatiously; without pretension.
- Synonyms Smaller, Fewer (see
less ), tiny, puny, stunted, Lilliputian, minute. - Inconsiderable, unimportant, slender, scanty, moderate, paltry, slight, feeble.
- Shallow. See
pettiness . - Illiberal, stingy, scrimping.
- noun A small thing or quantity; also, the small or slender part of a thing: as, the small of the leg or of the back; specifically, the smallest part of the trunk of a whale; the tapering part toward, near, or at the base of the flukes.
- noun plural Same as
small-clothes . - noun plural The “little go,” or previous examination: as, to be plucked for smalls.
- noun plural In coal-mining, same as
small coal (see above). - noun plural In metal-mining, ore mixed with gangue in particles of small size: a term used with various shades of meaning in certain districts of England.
- In a small quantity or degree; little.
- Low; in low tones; gently; timidly; also, in a shrill or high key.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adverb obsolete In or to small extent, quantity, or degree; little; slightly.
- adverb Obs. or Humorous Not loudly; faintly; timidly.
- transitive verb obsolete To make little or less.
- adjective Having little size, compared with other things of the same kind; little in quantity or degree; diminutive; not large or extended in dimension; not great; not much; inconsiderable.
- adjective Being of slight consequence; feeble in influence or importance; unimportant; trivial; insignificant.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Happy memories include, the small small bed that Rick had when we met . it was small . it was great ., the lack of hangers, the big screen TV that took my mind off of the past a lot of nights, the hamburgers and cheese and crazy nights of eating dinner at midnight . it was like being in college never alone and much activity.
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To form them use two very small coffeespoons or eggspoons, as the quenelles should not be larger than _small_ olives; butter the spoons slightly, and when formed drop each for one or two minutes into boiling pale-colored stock.
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Children should be fed carefully, and but a small quantity at a time, being particular both for adults and children to use as little _liquid_ as possible; drink water in _small_ quantities, not very cold.
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A small tree recognized by its _small round reddish brown buds_ and
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_Caution_: If the patient is an infant or small child, blow _small puffs_ of air into him about 20 times a minute.
In Time of Emergency A Citizen's Handbook on Nuclear Attack, Natural Disasters (1968)
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If, therefore, I wish to say the small fires in the houseand I can do this in one wordI must form the word fire-in-the-house, to which elements corresponding to small, our plural, and the are appended.
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First he gathered a few small twigs and made a _very small_ fire.
Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865
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The covers were removed -- two small soles (much _too small_ for three people), and a dish of potatoes.
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He prefers the term "small unmanned aircraft" to describe the two units his department is buying.
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But the Brewers don't particularly like the term "small market," and don't use it as a crutch.
angharad commented on the word small
In my household, we refer to the pocket-pets (rodents) this way. To differentiate from our "medium", which is the cat, and the "larges", who are us. A feral house-mouse is, then, similarly small, little or, better tiny; and insects are tiny or wee. If we had a ferret, I suspect it would be smallish or not-quite-medium. I likewise suspect a standard dog would be larger or largish.
December 15, 2006
jrome commented on the word small
"But we should understand that for many ideas enabled by the Internet, small is the new big." -- January 3, 2008, 3:45 pm
Twitter, Firefox and Big Ideas That Are Small Companies
By Saul Hansell
NY TIMES Tags: Business Models, firefox, microblogging, Mozilla, twitter
February 6, 2008