littleness

I

(New American Roget's College Thesaurus)

Small size

Nouns

1. littleness, smallness, minuteness, diminutiveness; thinness, narrowness; epitome, abstract, brief (see shortness); microcosm; rudiment, miniature; vanishing point. See insubstantiality, powderiness, part, invisibility.

2. (small animal) animalcule, monad, mite, insect, fly, midge, gnat, shrimp, peewee, minnow, worm, maggot, entozoïn, ameba, microbe, germ, bacterium, grub, tomtit, runt, mouse, small fry, mustard seed, peppercorn, pebble, grain of sand, molehill.

3. (small object) point; atom, molecule, ion, electron, neutron, hadron; fragment, particle, crumb, powder; pinpoint, [micro]dot, speck, mote, jot, iota; decimal, fraction; modicum, minimum; minutiae; trifle; soupçon, suspicion, shade, scintilla, smidgeon; grain, bit, fleck, scruple, granule, minim; sip, dab, drop[let], dash, driblet, sprinkling, tinge; bloom; scrap, tag, splinter, chip, sliver, morsel, crumb; bite, snick, snack; thimbleful; nutshell; notebook computer; fine print.

4. (small person) dwarf, midget, pygmy; shrimp, peanut, pipsqueak, runt, peewee, bantam; Tom Thumb, Lilliputian, Alberich. Slang, half-pint, short

stuff.

5. (study of small things) micrography, microscopy, micrology, microphotography; microscope, electron microscope, micrometer, vernier.

Verbs — belittle; dice; tweak; decrease, diminish, contract (see contraction).

Adjectives

1. little, small, minute, diminutive, micro[scopic], inconsiderable, exiguous, puny, wee, tiny; petty (see unimportance); petite, pee-wee, teeny[-weeny], midget, runty, stubby, bantam, elfin, dainty, dinky, minikin, knee-high, miniature, pygmy, nanoid, undersized, dapper, dwarf[ed], dwarfish, compact, stunted, limited, cramped, Lilliputian; pocket[-size], portable, short; thin, weazened, scant, scrubby; granular, powdery, shrunken. Informal, pint-size, itsy-bitsy, itty-bitty, runty, sawed-off, shrimpy.

2. impalpable, imperceptible, invisible, infinitesimal, atomic, molecular.

Adverbs — little, slightly, in a small compass, on a shoestring, in a nutshell, on a small scale; partly, partially; some, rather, somewhat; scarcely, hardly, barely, less than; merely; at [the] least.

Phrases — the best things come in small packages; the devil is in the details.

Quotations — Little things affect little minds (Benjamin Disraeli), I neglect God and his Angels for the noise of a fly, for the rattling of a coach, for the whining of a door (John Donne), It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important (A. Conan Doyle), Our life is frittered away by detail (Henry Thoreau).

Antonyms, see size, greatness.

II

(Roget's IV) n.

Syn. small size, petiteness, insignificance; see smallness .