minúsculo

Forms

minúsculo (feminine minúscula, masculine plural minúsculos, feminine plural minúsculas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin minusculus (“rather small”), taken into Spanish in 1734.^[2][3][4] The Latin adjective is a diminutive of minor (“smaller”), built on the stem that ended in -s, seen in the neuter minus (“less”), with the suffix -culus.^[1][5][6] Classical authors, Cato, Varro and Cicero among them, used it for a smallish house, aviary or letter.^[7][5]

Its Spanish relatives from the same Latin comparative are menor and the learned mínimo, recorded in 1584.^[2] The same Latin word gave French minuscule and English minuscule.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word has two uses: the general sense “very small, of very little importance” and, in writing and printing, the small letter as opposed to the capital.^[3][8] The figurative sense is recorded in Medellín in 1896, of small resentments, and the literal one in Buenos Aires in 1927, of tiny tables.^[9] Its opposite is mayúsculo.^[10]

Timeline

• 1734 – Corominas's date of first record.^[2][4]
• 1896 – the first record from the Americas, in Medellín.^[9]

Meanings

Adjective

1. tiny, minute: very small in size or of very little importance: Vivían en un piso minúsculo.^[3][1]
2. (of a letter) lower case, minuscule: of the size and form used in ordinary writing, as opposed to a capital.^[3][8]

Noun

1. (feminine, minúscula) A lower-case letter.^[3][8]

Related words

• menor
• menos
• mínimo
• Latin minusculus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. menos
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. minúsculo
4. ^ a b c Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 433
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. minusculus
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. minúsculo
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. minusculus
8. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. minúsculo
9. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. minúsculo
10. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. minúsculo