miniature
English
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Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Italian miniatura (“manuscript illumination”), from miniare (“to illuminate”), from Latin miniō (“to colour red”), from minium (“red lead, minium”). Not related to minimum, minor or min (which are all from a different root, *mi-n-), though the sense development may have been influenced by association with them or sound symbolism.
Pronunciation
[edit]- (Received Pronunciation, Australia) IPA(key): /ˈmɪn.ɪ.tʃə/
Audio (Southern England): (file)
- (General American) IPA(key): /ˈmɪn.(i)ə.tʃəɹ/, /ˈmɪn.(i)ə.tʃʊɹ/
- (Canada) IPA(key): /ˈmɪn.ɪ.tʃəɹ/, (less commonly) /ˈmɪn.(i)ə.tʃəɹ/
Noun
[edit]miniature (plural miniatures)
- Greatly diminished size or form; reduced scale.
- A small version of something; a model of reduced scale.
- There was a miniature of a whaling ship in a glass bottle over the mantelpiece.
- 1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 9, page 324:
- The twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany are conceived as a miniature of the whole year, the character of each particular day answering to the character of a particular month.
- A small, highly detailed painting, a portrait miniature.
- 1886 October – 1887 January, H[enry] Rider Haggard, She: A History of Adventure, London: Longmans, Green, and Co., published 1887, →OCLC:
- The miniature was a picture of Leo's Greek mother - a lovely, dark-eyed creature.
- The art of painting such highly detailed miniature works.
- An illustration in an illuminated manuscript.
- A musical composition which is short in duration.
- Sacha composed a miniature for strings as a final project at the conservatory.
- (chess) A chess game which is concluded with very few moves.
- (roleplaying games, board games) A token in a game representing a unit or character.
- Jack had dozens of miniatures of Napoleonic footsoldiers painted in detailed period regalia for his wargames.
- Lettering in red; rubric distinction.
- A particular feature or trait.
- 1627, Philip Massinger, “The Great Duke of Florence”, in William Gifford, editor, The Plays of Philip Massinger[1], published 1845, act 5, scene 3, page 221:
- There's no miniature / In her fair face, but is a copious theme / Which would, discoursed at large of, make a volume.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]a model of reduced scale
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manuscript illustration
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a musical composition which is short in duration
a token in a game representing a unit or character
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- The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.
Adjective
[edit]miniature (comparative more miniature, superlative most miniature)
- Smaller than normal.
- I find miniature dogs annoying; they seem to yap more than full-size dogs.
- 2013 September 6, Alok Jha, “Miniature brains grown in lab”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 189, number 13, page 39:
- Scientists have grown miniature human brains in test tubes, creating a "tool" that will allow them to watch how the organs develop in the womb and, they hope, increase their understanding of neurological and mental problems. ¶ Just a few millimetres across, the "cerebral organoids" are built up of layers of brain cells with defined regions that resemble those seen in immature, embryonic brains.
Derived terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]smaller than normal
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Verb
[edit]miniature (third-person singular simple present miniatures, present participle miniaturing, simple past and past participle miniatured)
- (transitive) To make smaller than normal; to reproduce in miniature.
- 1755, John Shebbeare, An Answer to a Pamphlet, called A Second Letter to the People[2], London: M. Cooper, page 29:
- If it be ever so little removed, or seen thro’ the miniaturing End of the Perspective Glass, it either wholly escapes their Sight, or appears to them a mere Minutity.
- 1780, Samuel Jackson Pratt, Emma Corbett[3], Bath: Pratt and Clinch, Volume 2, Letter 67, p. ,101:
- The smile of the babe was in my eye, and in my heart. I saw miniatur’d forth, the features of the murdered Edward.
- c. 1807, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, letter to Joseph Cottle, cited in Joseph Cottle, Early Recollections, Chiefly Relating to the Late Samuel Taylor Coleridge, London: Longman, Rees, 1837, Volume 2, p. 131,[4]
- Now what the globe is in geography, miniaturing in order to manifest the truth, such is a poem to that image of God, which we were created into […]
- 1968, Samuel R. Delany, chapter 5, in Nova, New York: Doubleday:
- […] a moon holds its gray glories miniatured in rock and dust.
- 2009, Helen Oyeyemi, White Is for Witching[5], New York: Nan A. Talese, pages 98-99:
- Dad had had Lily’s Haiti photos developed, and […] among them was a sunset miniatured in purple […]
French
[edit]
Etymology
[edit]Borrowed from Italian miniatura. Unrelated to minuscule.
Pronunciation
[edit]Noun
[edit]miniature f (plural miniatures)
- miniature
- 1857, Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary […][6], Paris: Michel Lévy Frères; republished as Eleanor Marx, transl., Madame Bovary, 1886:
- Il y avait auprès, se cognant à tous les angles, la miniature donnée par Emma; sa toilette lui parut prétentieuse et son regard en coulisse du plus pitoyable effet; puis, à force de considérer cette image et d'évoquer le souvenir du modèle, les traits d'Emma peu à peu se confondirent en sa mémoire, comme si la figure vivante et la figure peinte, se frottant l'une contre l'autre, se fussent réciproquement effacées.
- Near it, chipped at all the corners, was a miniature given him by Emma: her toilette seemed to him pretentious, and her languishing look in the worst possible taste. Then, from looking at this image and recalling the memory of its original, Emma’s features little by little grew confused in his remembrance, as if the living and the painted face, rubbing one against the other, had effaced each other.
- (computing) thumbnail (a miniature preview of a larger image)
Derived terms
[edit]Descendants
[edit]- → Ukrainian: мініатю́ра (miniatjúra)
Further reading
[edit]- “miniature”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012
Italian
[edit]Noun
[edit]miniature f
Anagrams
[edit]Categories:
- English terms derived from a Paleo-Hispanic substrate
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English terms derived from Italian
- English terms derived from Proto-Italic
- English terms borrowed from Italian
- English terms derived from Latin
- English 3-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- en:Chess
- en:Role-playing games
- en:Board games
- English adjectives
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- en:Warhammer
- French terms borrowed from Italian
- French terms derived from Italian
- French 3-syllable words
- French terms with IPA pronunciation
- French terms with audio pronunciation
- French lemmas
- French nouns
- French countable nouns
- French feminine nouns
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- fr:Computing
- Italian non-lemma forms
- Italian noun forms