minimaladj.

Brit.

/ˈmɪnᵻml/, U.S.

/ˈmɪnəm(ə)l/

Origin: Probably of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from Latin, combined with an English element. Probably partly formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: Latin minimus , -al suffix¹, minimum n.

Etymology: In quot. 1666 at sense 1 < classical Latin minimus smallest (see minimum n. and adj.) + -al suffix¹. In subsequent use probably independently < minim- (in minimum n.) + -al suffix¹; compare maximal adj., optimal adj. Compare French minimal (1877), German minimal (19th cent.).

1. Relating to or constituting a minimum; of a minimum amount, quantity, or degree. More generally: extremely small; very slight, negligible; constituting a bare minimum, only just adequate.

ΘΚΠ

the world > space > extension in space > measurable spatial extent > smallness > [adjective] > extremely small

tinea1400

little weea1525

undersmall?1527

little little1542

perpusil1598

tiny1598

punctual1605

minute1606

pygmya1616

exiguous1630

atomical1646

minutulous1651

puncticular1658

arenulous1664

myriate1665

minimal1666

minim1671

infinitesimal1733

minutissim1768

weeny1790

midgety1798

teeny1802

pinpoint1807

atomic1809

homuncular1822

minnow1824

weeshy1825

pinhead1835

finitesimal1836

homoeopathic1838

teeny-weeny1842

teenty1844

teenty-taunty1844

teeny-tiny1849

submolecular1854

teensy1856

super-compact1860

midget1865

ultramicroscopic1870

pilulous1871

teensy-weensy1872

tee-tiny1872

minuscule1878

smitchy1888

eeny-weeny1894

eensy-weensy1904

pygmean1904

ultramicroscopical1904

bitsy1905

bitty1905

totty1906

millimetric1909

miniscule1909

minuscular1911

insectual1912

micro1931

eeny1933

eensy1940

submicrogram1941

submillimetre1954

diddy1963

mini1963

micro-mini1967

the world > relative properties > quantity > smallness of quantity, amount, or degree > [adjective] > smallest or slightest > least possible

minimal1666

irreducible1860

minimalistic1947

minimalist1985

1666 G. Harvey Morbus Anglicus x. 89 Choler being set on fire, and acting upon Melancholy, or rather calcining it into small acuated minimal bodies.

1876 Mind 1 168 The amount of the difference is here subject to greater fluctuations... Now it is very considerable, now it assumes a minimal and in rare instances even a negative value.

1891 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 17 Jan. 142/1 Without charge, save a minimal one for drugs.

1899 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. VI. 846 The minimal limit [of the field of vision] in health is 55 degrees.

1935 Harper's Mag. June 104/2 It was this recognition of the Russians as human entities, with certain minimal human rights and a capacity for human pain..that signalized the change in me.

1962 H. L. Kern et al. in A. Pirie Lens Metabolism 393 Diffusional exchange of the labelled atoms is minimal since they are diluted by the lenticular sodium on entry.

1985 J. Irving Cider House Rules iv. 134 The traces of albumen in her urine were minimal.

1996 New Statesman 26 July 42/3 Elaborate and highly stylised signatures, with deliberately minimal evolution from Sultan to Sultan.

†2. Zoology. Of or relating to the minimus or fifth digit. Obsolete. rare.

ΘΚΠ

the world > life > the body > external parts of body > limb > digit > finger > [adjective]

fingerlyOE

fingereda1529

digital1656

digitary1767

fingerish1888

minimal1893

1893 H. Allen Monogr. Bats N. Amer. (new ed.) 2 The membrane attached to the ankle..is disposed to cross it by an oblique, raised fold and be secured to the minimal, i.e. little toe side.

3. Mathematics. Designating an element a of an ordered or partially ordered set such that there exists no element b in the set for which b < a, where ‘<’ represents the binary relation defined on the set.

ΚΠ

1904 Amer. Jrnl. Math. 26 63 It contains as a minimal invariant subgroup an abelian group (P₁) of order p^a.

1923 Ann. Math. 24 254 As p is minimal, either m or n must equal p.

1950 T. J. Benac tr. B. L. van der Waerden Mod. Algebra II. xvi. 138 In the set of all left ideals distinct from the null ideal there are minimal ideals.

1990 Proc. London Math. Soc. 61 609 A lattice L is said to be unital if it contains both a minimal and a maximal element, 0 and 1 respectively.

a. Linguistics. Designating the smallest unit into which a linguistic element, structure, or utterance can be subdivided at a particular level of analysis. Frequently in minimal free form (originally minimum free form: see minimum n. and adj. Compounds 1).

ΚΠ

1930 H. E. Palmer Princ. Romanization 52 We may designate by the term monophone any phone of the first or second degrees of abstraction of which the concrete members are so similar in point of production and of acoustic effect even when observed by a competent observer, that it may be regarded as a minimal unit of pronunciation (i.e. practically insusceptible of sub-division).

1951 Word 7 5 The simple term seme identifies any minimal feature of meaning.

1964 R. A. Hall Introd. Ling. 15 Morphemes..are the minimal units which carry meaning.

1968 J. Lyons Introd. Theoret. Linguistics v. 202 This and that may occur as minimal free forms, and so are classified as words.

1991 Canad. Jrnl. Linguistics 36 ii. 117 The minimal meaningful units, for languages which do have words, must be words (i.e., cannot be morphemes).

b. Phonetics. Of a pair or (less commonly) a set of forms: differing in only one irreducible phonological segment. Also: relating to or involving such a difference.

ΘΚΠ

the mind > language > linguistics > study of speech sound > speech sound > [adjective] > of two sounds: distinguished by single feature

minimal1939

1939 Amer. Speech 14 122 Words can be distinguished by the minimal opposition of vowel nasality and [n].

1942 C. F. Hockett in Language 18 7 The term ‘contrastive pair’, meaning any pair between which there are differences in a context of similarity, any pair usable for the listing of features, is used here instead of the traditional term ‘minimal pair’.

1950 D. Jones Phoneme vi. 15 When a distinction between two sequences occurring in a language is such that any lesser degree of distinction would be inadequate for clearly differentiating words in that language, the distinction is termed a ‘minimal one’... Minimal distinctions are very commonly effected by the addition or subtraction of a phoneme.

1961 H. A. Gleason Introd. Descr. Ling. (ed. 2) i. 16 In calling bill and pill a minimal pair we assume that they differ by only one phoneme.

1992 P. Roach Introducing Phonetics 122 Vowels..may be ‘nasalized’..—this effect is phonemically contrastive in French, where we find minimal pairs très..and train.

5. Possessing some attribute, esp. complexity, in the least possible degree.

ΚΠ

1949 J. R. Firth in Trans. Philol. Soc. 1948 142 The weak, neutral, or ‘minimal’ vowel.

1953 R. Niebuhr Christian Realism & Polit. Probl. (1954) ii. 25 The necessarily minimal constitutional structure which we have embodied in the United Nations.

1971 J. Z. Young Introd. Study Man xxxviii. 553 A minimal yet striking example [of genetic variation of the nervous system] is the inheritance of the capacity to taste the substance phenylthiourea.

1977 Sci. Amer. Oct. 113/1 A triangulation that represents a minimal five-chromatic map cannot have any vertices with fewer than five neighbors.

a. Art. Characterized by or making use of simple or primary forms, structures, etc., esp. ones that are geometric or massive; minimalist.

ΚΠ

1958 Listener 23 Oct. 647/2 Creating huge, minimal forms with the palette knife in a few colours.

1965 R. Wollheim in Arts Mag. Jan. 26 (title) Minimal art.

1967 C. Greenberg in E. Lucie-Smith Movements in Art since 1945 (1969) i. 13 The working out of this problem, whose solution seems to have arrived in the form of what is called Primary Structures, ABC, or Minimal Art.

1971 Rolling Stone 24 June 36/5 It remained only for minimal sculpture to come along, with its emphasis on the self-contained object (sometimes just a log, rock, or mound of dirt).

1987 M. Flanagan Trust v. 42 She had talked well to everyone: pop, op and minimal artists.

1998 Guardian (Nexis) 30 May 5 She studied philosophy and used to be a punk. She paints minimal pictures, then cuts them up or kneecaps them.

b. Of an artistic or literary work, design, performance, etc.: characterized by simplicity and lack of adornment. Cf. minimalist n. 2a.

ΘΚΠ

society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > period, movement, or school of art > late 19th and 20th centuries > [adjective] > minimalist

minimal1965

reductive1967

reductivist1967

1965 R. Wollheim in Arts Mag. Jan. 26 Why could not Mallarmé, after an interval of time, have simply got up from his chair and produced the blank sheet of paper as the poem which he sat down to write?.. Such a gesture..would provide us with an extreme instance of what I call minimal art.

1989 Lit. Rev. Dec. 8/2 Readers of current American fiction will find this territory very familiar, as they will the minimal style.

1990 Dancing Times Oct. 35/2 The first item..reminded me in its experimental minimal style of the Fantasia semplice.

1999 R. T. Davies Queer as Folk: Scripts Episode 2. 38 (stage direct.) The foyer of a city-cenre PR company... Modern, minimal design.

c. Music. Of a composition: = minimalist n. 2b.

ΘΚΠ

society > leisure > the arts > music > type of music > [adjective] > style of composition

grandc1666

romantic1836

routinier1837

parodistic1845

rococo1868

virtuose1873

virtuosic1879

galant1884

polymorphous1890

monothematic1894

rococo1904

impressionistic1908

salon1914

gallant1925

athematic1935

non-thematic1946

minimalistic1947

stochastic1958

progressive1963

minimal1968

post-minimal1971

minimalist1977

1968 M. Nyman in Spectator 11 Oct. 519/1 I deduced a recipe for the successful ‘miminal-music’ happening.

1979 Musical Q. Jan. 106 ‘Minimal’ music..may not be minimal for the listener—only unpredictable.

1980 New Grove Dict. Music XVIII. 481/2 Systematic, or ‘minimal’, music may consist of extended reiterations of a motif or group of motifs... Alternatively, the element of repetition may be governed by a system.

1985 Radio Times 20 July 85/1 It is indeed hard to see how such a gigantic work..can be considered ‘minimal’ in any way.

Compounds

minimal brain dysfunction n. Psychiatry = attention deficit disorder n. at attention n. Additions.

ΚΠ

1966 Jrnl. Lancet 86 121/1 The child with the medical diagnosis of minimal brain dysfunction (or the educational diagnosis of ‘specific learning disabilities’) is the current focus of unprecedented multidisciplinary interest and concern.

1989 J. A. B. Collier & J. M. Longmore Oxf. Handbk. Clin. Specialties (ed. 2) iii. 206 If there is also excessive inattention, poor concentration at school and impulsivity, the wider term attention deficit disorder or minimal brain dysfunction is used by some workers—provided the cause is not psychosis or an affective disorder.

1997 Brit. Med. Jrnl. (Electronic ed.) 11 Oct. From the beginning of this century the concept of the condition has evolved from it being a biologically based disorder of behaviour control, from a condition with minimal brain dysfunction, to a disorder characterised by a deficit of attention.

minimal surface n. Mathematics the surface of the smallest area bounded by a given closed curve.

ΚΠ

1887 Encycl. Brit. XXII. 672/2 The condition leads to a partial differential equation of the second order for the determination of the minimal surface.

1957 Ann. Math. 66 543 A minimal surface which can be represented in the form z = z(x, y) for all x, y must be a plane.

1991 D. Wells Penguin Dict. Curious & Interesting Geom. 27 The surface formed by rotating a catenary about its directrix is a minimal surface.

This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022).

单词	minimal
释义	minimaladj. Brit. /ˈmɪnᵻml/, U.S. /ˈmɪnəm(ə)l/ Origin: Probably of multiple origins. Partly a borrowing from Latin, combined with an English element. Probably partly formed within English, by derivation. Etymons: Latin minimus , -al suffix¹, minimum n. Etymology: In quot. 1666 at sense 1 < classical Latin minimus smallest (see minimum n. and adj.) + -al suffix¹. In subsequent use probably independently < minim- (in minimum n.) + -al suffix¹; compare maximal adj., optimal adj. Compare French minimal (1877), German minimal (19th cent.). 1. Relating to or constituting a minimum; of a minimum amount, quantity, or degree. More generally: extremely small; very slight, negligible; constituting a bare minimum, only just adequate. ΘΚΠ the world > space > extension in space > measurable spatial extent > smallness > [adjective] > extremely small tinea1400 little weea1525 undersmall?1527 little little1542 perpusil1598 tiny1598 punctual1605 minute1606 pygmya1616 exiguous1630 atomical1646 minutulous1651 puncticular1658 arenulous1664 myriate1665 minimal1666 minim1671 infinitesimal1733 minutissim1768 weeny1790 midgety1798 teeny1802 pinpoint1807 atomic1809 homuncular1822 minnow1824 weeshy1825 pinhead1835 finitesimal1836 homoeopathic1838 teeny-weeny1842 teenty1844 teenty-taunty1844 teeny-tiny1849 submolecular1854 teensy1856 super-compact1860 midget1865 ultramicroscopic1870 pilulous1871 teensy-weensy1872 tee-tiny1872 minuscule1878 smitchy1888 eeny-weeny1894 eensy-weensy1904 pygmean1904 ultramicroscopical1904 bitsy1905 bitty1905 totty1906 millimetric1909 miniscule1909 minuscular1911 insectual1912 micro1931 eeny1933 eensy1940 submicrogram1941 submillimetre1954 diddy1963 mini1963 micro-mini1967 the world > relative properties > quantity > smallness of quantity, amount, or degree > [adjective] > smallest or slightest > least possible minimal1666 irreducible1860 minimalistic1947 minimalist1985 1666 G. Harvey Morbus Anglicus x. 89 Choler being set on fire, and acting upon Melancholy, or rather calcining it into small acuated minimal bodies. 1876 Mind 1 168 The amount of the difference is here subject to greater fluctuations... Now it is very considerable, now it assumes a minimal and in rare instances even a negative value. 1891 Brit. Med. Jrnl. 17 Jan. 142/1 Without charge, save a minimal one for drugs. 1899 T. C. Allbutt et al. Syst. Med. VI. 846 The minimal limit [of the field of vision] in health is 55 degrees. 1935 Harper's Mag. June 104/2 It was this recognition of the Russians as human entities, with certain minimal human rights and a capacity for human pain..that signalized the change in me. 1962 H. L. Kern et al. in A. Pirie Lens Metabolism 393 Diffusional exchange of the labelled atoms is minimal since they are diluted by the lenticular sodium on entry. 1985 J. Irving Cider House Rules iv. 134 The traces of albumen in her urine were minimal. 1996 New Statesman 26 July 42/3 Elaborate and highly stylised signatures, with deliberately minimal evolution from Sultan to Sultan. †2. Zoology. Of or relating to the minimus or fifth digit. Obsolete. rare. ΘΚΠ the world > life > the body > external parts of body > limb > digit > finger > [adjective] fingerlyOE fingereda1529 digital1656 digitary1767 fingerish1888 minimal1893 1893 H. Allen Monogr. Bats N. Amer. (new ed.) 2 The membrane attached to the ankle..is disposed to cross it by an oblique, raised fold and be secured to the minimal, i.e. little toe side. 3. Mathematics. Designating an element a of an ordered or partially ordered set such that there exists no element b in the set for which b < a, where ‘<’ represents the binary relation defined on the set. ΚΠ 1904 Amer. Jrnl. Math. 26 63 It contains as a minimal invariant subgroup an abelian group (P₁) of order p^a. 1923 Ann. Math. 24 254 As p is minimal, either m or n must equal p. 1950 T. J. Benac tr. B. L. van der Waerden Mod. Algebra II. xvi. 138 In the set of all left ideals distinct from the null ideal there are minimal ideals. 1990 Proc. London Math. Soc. 61 609 A lattice L is said to be unital if it contains both a minimal and a maximal element, 0 and 1 respectively. 4. a. Linguistics. Designating the smallest unit into which a linguistic element, structure, or utterance can be subdivided at a particular level of analysis. Frequently in minimal free form (originally minimum free form: see minimum n. and adj. Compounds 1). ΚΠ 1930 H. E. Palmer Princ. Romanization 52 We may designate by the term monophone any phone of the first or second degrees of abstraction of which the concrete members are so similar in point of production and of acoustic effect even when observed by a competent observer, that it may be regarded as a minimal unit of pronunciation (i.e. practically insusceptible of sub-division). 1951 Word 7 5 The simple term seme identifies any minimal feature of meaning. 1964 R. A. Hall Introd. Ling. 15 Morphemes..are the minimal units which carry meaning. 1968 J. Lyons Introd. Theoret. Linguistics v. 202 This and that may occur as minimal free forms, and so are classified as words. 1991 Canad. Jrnl. Linguistics 36 ii. 117 The minimal meaningful units, for languages which do have words, must be words (i.e., cannot be morphemes). b. Phonetics. Of a pair or (less commonly) a set of forms: differing in only one irreducible phonological segment. Also: relating to or involving such a difference. ΘΚΠ the mind > language > linguistics > study of speech sound > speech sound > [adjective] > of two sounds: distinguished by single feature minimal1939 1939 Amer. Speech 14 122 Words can be distinguished by the minimal opposition of vowel nasality and [n]. 1942 C. F. Hockett in Language 18 7 The term ‘contrastive pair’, meaning any pair between which there are differences in a context of similarity, any pair usable for the listing of features, is used here instead of the traditional term ‘minimal pair’. 1950 D. Jones Phoneme vi. 15 When a distinction between two sequences occurring in a language is such that any lesser degree of distinction would be inadequate for clearly differentiating words in that language, the distinction is termed a ‘minimal one’... Minimal distinctions are very commonly effected by the addition or subtraction of a phoneme. 1961 H. A. Gleason Introd. Descr. Ling. (ed. 2) i. 16 In calling bill and pill a minimal pair we assume that they differ by only one phoneme. 1992 P. Roach Introducing Phonetics 122 Vowels..may be ‘nasalized’..—this effect is phonemically contrastive in French, where we find minimal pairs très..and train. 5. Possessing some attribute, esp. complexity, in the least possible degree. ΚΠ 1949 J. R. Firth in Trans. Philol. Soc. 1948 142 The weak, neutral, or ‘minimal’ vowel. 1953 R. Niebuhr Christian Realism & Polit. Probl. (1954) ii. 25 The necessarily minimal constitutional structure which we have embodied in the United Nations. 1971 J. Z. Young Introd. Study Man xxxviii. 553 A minimal yet striking example [of genetic variation of the nervous system] is the inheritance of the capacity to taste the substance phenylthiourea. 1977 Sci. Amer. Oct. 113/1 A triangulation that represents a minimal five-chromatic map cannot have any vertices with fewer than five neighbors. 6. a. Art. Characterized by or making use of simple or primary forms, structures, etc., esp. ones that are geometric or massive; minimalist. ΚΠ 1958 Listener 23 Oct. 647/2 Creating huge, minimal forms with the palette knife in a few colours. 1965 R. Wollheim in Arts Mag. Jan. 26 (title) Minimal art. 1967 C. Greenberg in E. Lucie-Smith Movements in Art since 1945 (1969) i. 13 The working out of this problem, whose solution seems to have arrived in the form of what is called Primary Structures, ABC, or Minimal Art. 1971 Rolling Stone 24 June 36/5 It remained only for minimal sculpture to come along, with its emphasis on the self-contained object (sometimes just a log, rock, or mound of dirt). 1987 M. Flanagan Trust v. 42 She had talked well to everyone: pop, op and minimal artists. 1998 Guardian (Nexis) 30 May 5 She studied philosophy and used to be a punk. She paints minimal pictures, then cuts them up or kneecaps them. b. Of an artistic or literary work, design, performance, etc.: characterized by simplicity and lack of adornment. Cf. minimalist n. 2a. ΘΚΠ society > leisure > the arts > visual arts > period, movement, or school of art > late 19th and 20th centuries > [adjective] > minimalist minimal1965 reductive1967 reductivist1967 1965 R. Wollheim in Arts Mag. Jan. 26 Why could not Mallarmé, after an interval of time, have simply got up from his chair and produced the blank sheet of paper as the poem which he sat down to write?.. Such a gesture..would provide us with an extreme instance of what I call minimal art. 1989 Lit. Rev. Dec. 8/2 Readers of current American fiction will find this territory very familiar, as they will the minimal style. 1990 Dancing Times Oct. 35/2 The first item..reminded me in its experimental minimal style of the Fantasia semplice. 1999 R. T. Davies Queer as Folk: Scripts Episode 2. 38 (stage direct.) The foyer of a city-cenre PR company... Modern, minimal design. c. Music. Of a composition: = minimalist n. 2b. ΘΚΠ society > leisure > the arts > music > type of music > [adjective] > style of composition grandc1666 romantic1836 routinier1837 parodistic1845 rococo1868 virtuose1873 virtuosic1879 galant1884 polymorphous1890 monothematic1894 rococo1904 impressionistic1908 salon1914 gallant1925 athematic1935 non-thematic1946 minimalistic1947 stochastic1958 progressive1963 minimal1968 post-minimal1971 minimalist1977 1968 M. Nyman in Spectator 11 Oct. 519/1 I deduced a recipe for the successful ‘miminal-music’ happening. 1979 Musical Q. Jan. 106 ‘Minimal’ music..may not be minimal for the listener—only unpredictable. 1980 New Grove Dict. Music XVIII. 481/2 Systematic, or ‘minimal’, music may consist of extended reiterations of a motif or group of motifs... Alternatively, the element of repetition may be governed by a system. 1985 Radio Times 20 July 85/1 It is indeed hard to see how such a gigantic work..can be considered ‘minimal’ in any way. Compounds minimal brain dysfunction n. Psychiatry = attention deficit disorder n. at attention n. Additions. ΚΠ 1966 Jrnl. Lancet 86 121/1 The child with the medical diagnosis of minimal brain dysfunction (or the educational diagnosis of ‘specific learning disabilities’) is the current focus of unprecedented multidisciplinary interest and concern. 1989 J. A. B. Collier & J. M. Longmore Oxf. Handbk. Clin. Specialties (ed. 2) iii. 206 If there is also excessive inattention, poor concentration at school and impulsivity, the wider term attention deficit disorder or minimal brain dysfunction is used by some workers—provided the cause is not psychosis or an affective disorder. 1997 Brit. Med. Jrnl. (Electronic ed.) 11 Oct. From the beginning of this century the concept of the condition has evolved from it being a biologically based disorder of behaviour control, from a condition with minimal brain dysfunction, to a disorder characterised by a deficit of attention. minimal surface n. Mathematics the surface of the smallest area bounded by a given closed curve. ΚΠ 1887 Encycl. Brit. XXII. 672/2 The condition leads to a partial differential equation of the second order for the determination of the minimal surface. 1957 Ann. Math. 66 543 A minimal surface which can be represented in the form z = z(x, y) for all x, y must be a plane. 1991 D. Wells Penguin Dict. Curious & Interesting Geom. 27 The surface formed by rotating a catenary about its directrix is a minimal surface. This entry has been updated (OED Third Edition, March 2002; most recently modified version published online March 2022). > see also also refers to : mini-maln. < adj.1666 see also
随便看	woebegone-sounding woebegonelooking woebegoneness woebegonenesses woebegonesounding woebegonish woebeset woebetrothed woebringing woecrosswounded woeday woedestined woeenwrap woeexhausted woeforeboding woefraught woeful woefuller woefullest woefullier woefulliest woefully woefulness woefulnesses woeheart

minimaladj.

Compounds

> see also