1
- extremely small; tiny非常小的, 微小的：
a minuscule fragment of DNA.
极小的DNA片断。
1.1
- informal so small as to be negligible or insufficient〈非正式〉小得可忽略不计的; 微不足道的：
he believed the risk of infection was minuscule.
他相信感染的危险是极小的。
2
- of or in lower-case letters, as distinct from capitals or uncials（字母）小写的。
2.1
- of or in a small cursive script of the Roman alphabet, with ascenders and descenders, developed in the 7th century AD罗马花体小写字母的。
USAGE
The standard spelling is minuscule rather than miniscule. The latter form is a very common one (accounting for almost half of citations for the term in the Oxford English Corpus), and has been recorded since the late 19th century. It arose by analogy with other words beginning with mini-, where the meaning is similarly 'very small'. It is now so widely used that it can be considered as an acceptable variant, although it should be avoided in formal contexts.
派生词
minuscular
/mɪˈnʌskjʊlə(r)/ adjective词源
early 18th cent.: from French, from Latin minuscula （littera） 'somewhat smaller (letter)'.