What does small mean?

What does small mean?. The world's largest and most trusted free online dictionary: definitions, synonyms, word origins, example sentences, word games, and more.

What does small mean? - The Free Dictionary

Search

[n] the slender part of the back[a] limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent(a little dining room a little house a small car a little (or small) group)[r] on a small scale(think small)[n] a garment size for a small person[a] limited in size or scope(a small bus

small

small - The Free Dictionary

[n] the slender part of the back

[a] limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent
(a little dining room a little house a small car a little (or small) group)

[r] on a small scale
(think small)

[n] a garment size for a small person

[a] limited in size or scope
(a small business a newspaper with a modest circulation small-scale plans a pocket-size country)

[a] (of children and animals) young, immature
(what a big little boy you are small children)

[a] slight or limited; especially in degree or intensity or scope
(a series of death struggles with small time in between)

[a] low or inferior in station or quality
(a humble cottage a lowly parish priest a modest man of the people small beginnings)

[a] lowercase
(little a small a e.e.cummings's poetry is written all in minuscule letters)

[a] (of a voice) faint
(a little voice a still small voice)

[a] have fine or very small constituent particles
(a small misty rain)

[a] not large but sufficient in size or amount
(a modest salary modest inflation helped in my own small way)

[a] made to seem smaller or less (especially in worth)
(her comments made me feel small)

Other vocabulary

's gravenhage, s, s wrench, s-shape, s-shaped, s. s. van dine, s. smith stevens, s.t.p., s.u.v., s/n, sa, sa node, saale, saale glaciation, saale river, saame, saami, saarinen, saba, sabah, sabahan, sabal, sabal palmetto, sabaoth, sabaton, sabayon, sabbat, sabbatarian, sabbath, sabbath school, m, m-1, m-1 rifle, m-theory, m. j. schleiden, m.m., m1, m2, m3, ma, ma'am, maalox, maar, maarianhamina, mac, macabre, macaca, macaca irus, macaca mulatta, macaca radiata, macaca sylvana, macadam, macadamia, macadamia integrifolia, macadamia nut, macadamia nut tree, macadamia ternifolia, macadamia tetraphylla, macadamia tree, macadamise

Dictionary

A dictionary is a listing of lexemes from the lexicon of one or more specific languages, often arranged alphabetically (or by consonantal root for Semitic languages or radical and stroke for ideographic languages), which may include information on definitions, usage, etymologies, pronunciations, translation, etc. It is a lexicographical reference that shows inter-relationships among the data.

A broad distinction is made between general and specialized dictionaries. Specialized dictionaries include words in specialist fields, rather than a complete range of words in the language. Lexical items that describe concepts in specific fields are usually called terms instead of words, although there is no consensus whether lexicology and terminology are two different fields of study. In theory, general dictionaries are supposed[citation needed] to be semasiological, mapping word to definition, while specialized dictionaries are supposed to be onomasiological, first identifying concepts and then establishing the terms used to designate them. In practice, the two approaches are used for both types. There are other types of dictionaries that do not fit neatly into the above distinction, for instance bilingual (translation) dictionaries, dictionaries of synonyms (thesauri), and rhyming dictionaries. The word dictionary (unqualified) is usually understood to refer to a general purpose monolingual dictionary.

There is also a contrast between prescriptive or descriptive dictionaries; the former reflect what is seen as correct use of the language while the latter reflect recorded actual use. Stylistic indications (e.g. "informal" or "vulgar") in many modern dictionaries are also considered by some to be less than objectively descriptive.

The first recorded dictionaries date back to Sumerian times around 2300 BCE, in the form of bilingual dictionaries, and the oldest surviving monolingual dictionaries are Chinese dictionaries c. 3rd century BCE. The first purely English alphabetical dictionary was A Table Alphabeticall, written in 1604, and monolingual dictionaries in other languages also began appearing in Europe at around this time. The systematic study of dictionaries as objects of scientific interest arose as a 20th-century enterprise, called lexicography, and largely initiated by Ladislav Zgusta. The birth of the new discipline was not without controversy, with the practical dictionary-makers being sometimes accused by others of having an "astonishing" lack of method and critical-self reflection.