minutia
noun
Did you know?
Minutia Has Latin Roots
Minutia was borrowed into English in the 18th century from the Latin plural noun minutiae, meaning "trifles" or "details," and derived from the singular noun minutia, meaning "smallness." In English, minutia is most often used in the plural as either minutiae (pronounced \muh-NOO-shee-ee) or, on occasion, as simply minutia. The Latin minutia, incidentally, comes from minutus, an adjective meaning "small" that was created from the verb minuere, meaning "to lessen." A familiar descendant of minutus is minute.
Did you know?
How to Pronounce Minutia and Minutiae
Minutiae, we’ve established, is the plural of minutia and also far more common in prose than the singular minutia. There is, however, confusion over the pronunciation of both the singular and the plural, and the confusion may be leading some to use the singular minutia where the plural minutiae is called for. Minutia, the singular, is generally pronounced \muh-NOO-shee-uh\ or \muh-NOO-shuh\, and the plural minutiae should be properly pronounced \muh-NOO-shee-ee\. But transcripts of spoken English show that this is not always adhered to: minutia shows up in transcribed speech far more often than it does in edited writing, and usually in places where one would expect minutiae. This leads us to believe that the pronunciation of minutiae is merging with the pronunciation of minutia, or that minutia is being re-analyzed as a zero plural.
Examples of minutia in a Sentence
Kelly G. Richardson, San Diego Union-Tribune, 4 May 2024
Fooling one on a fly can boil down to minutiae like skipping head cement on your flies to reduce unnatural smells.
—Will Brantley, Field & Stream, 2 May 2024
Bear witness to the minutiae of your partner’s day.
—Amy Rose Spiegel, SELF, 2 May 2024
The small dining areas for officers and sailors are among the few places where the crew can unwind together and study the minutiae of submarine operations for hours on end.
—Kenny Holston, New York Times, 30 Apr. 2024
But love is ignorant to the minutiae of its inception.
—The New Yorker, 24 Apr. 2024
On the 1990s-era internet, the killers left behind their plans of violent terror – like threats and bomb-building instructions – as well as the personal minutiae of teenage life, like playing the first-person shooter game Doom.
—USA TODAY, 18 Apr. 2024
Throughout, Zaillian demonstrates a level of patience and interest in professional minutiae rarely seen on television outside of The Wire, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul.
—Alan Sepinwall, Rolling Stone, 4 Apr. 2024
Close associates from his Tainan days describe him as solemn and focused on the minutia of policies.
—Vic Chiang, Washington Post, 13 Jan. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'minutia.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near minutia
Cite this Entry
“Minutia.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/minutia. Accessed 14 May. 2024.
Copy Citation
Share