mince
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
Alternative forms
Etymology
From Middle English mincen, minsen; partly from Old English minsian, ġeminsian (“to make less, make smaller, diminish”), from Proto-West Germanic *minnisōn, from Proto-Germanic *minnisōną (“to make less”); partly from Old French mincer, mincier (“to cut into small pieces”), from mince (“slender, slight, puny”), from Frankish *minsto, *minnisto, superlative of *min, *minn (“small, less”), from Proto-Germanic *minniz (“less”); both from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“small, little”). Cognate with Old Saxon minsōn (“to make less, make smaller”), Old Dutch minson (“to make smaller”), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌽𐌶𐌽𐌰𐌽 (minznan, “to become less, diminish”), Swedish minska (“to reduce, lessen”), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌽𐍃 (mins, “slender, slight”). More at min.
Pronunciation
Noun
mince (countable and uncountable, plural minces)
- (uncountable) Finely chopped meat; minced meat.
- (uncountable) Finely chopped mixed fruit used in Christmas pies; mincemeat.
- During Christmas time my dad loves to eat mince pies.
- (countable) An affected (often dainty or short and precise) gait.
- 1949, Truman Capote, “Children on their Birthdays”, in A Tree of Night and Other Stories, page 36:
- A wiry little girl in a starched, lemon-colored party dress, she sassed along with a grownup mince, one hand on her hip, the other supporting a spinsterish umbrella.
- 1963, John Fowles, The Collector, page 15:
- She was just the same; she had a light way of walking and she always wore flat heels so she didn't have that mince like most girls.
- (countable) An affected manner, especially of speaking; an affectation.
- 1896, George Bernard Shaw, “Madame Sans-Gene”, in London Saturday Review:
- A very moderate degree of accomplishment in this direction would make an end of stage smart speech, which, like the got-up Oxford mince and drawl of a foolish curate, is the mark of a snob.
- 1928, R. M. Pope, The Education Outlook, volume 80, page 285:
- And, further, who has not heard what someone has christened the "Oxford" mince, where every consonant is mispronounced and every vowel gets a wrong value?
- 2008, Opie Read, The Colossus, page 95:
- [...] a smiling man, portly and impressive, coming toward them with a dignified mince in his walk.
- (countable, Cockney rhyming slang, chiefly in the plural) An eye (from mince pie).
- (UK, slang, uncountable) Something worthless; rubbish.
- That band's new album is total mince.
Quotations
Derived terms
Translations
finely chopped meat — see also ground beef
|
finely chopped mixed fruit — see mincemeat
short precise step
affected manner
|
Verb
mince (third-person singular simple present minces, present participle mincing, simple past and past participle minced)
- (transitive) To make less; to make small.
- (transitive) To lessen; to diminish; to diminish in speaking; to speak of lightly or slightingly; to minimise.
- Synonyms: see Thesaurus:diminish
- (transitive, rare) To effect mincingly.
- (transitive, cooking) To cut into very small pieces; to chop finely.
- Butchers often use machines to mince meat.
- (archaic, transitive, figuratively) To suppress or weaken the force of.
- 1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery:
- Siren, now mince the sin, / And mollify damnation with a phrase.
- To say or utter vaguely (not directly or frankly).
- 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:
- I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say — "I love you."
- 2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: ELAADEN (HNS) - Nora Tallis Found Alive:
- Despite prolonged exposure to harsh conditions, medics say Nora Tallis returned to the Nexus in stable condition. In a statement to HNS, Tallis did not mince words. "Never send me to that hellhole again."
- to mince one's words
- a minced oath
- (transitive) To affect; to pronounce affectedly or with an accent.
- 1869, Alexander J. Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation, with special reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer, part 1, page 194:
- In some districts of England ll is sounded like w, thus bowd (booud) for BOLD, bw (buu) for BULL, caw (kau) for CALL. But this pronunciation is merely a provincialism, and not to be imitated unless you wish to mince like these blunderers.
- 1905, George Henderson, The Gaelic Dialects, IV, in the Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, published by Kuno Meyer and L. Chr. Stern, volume 5, page 98:
- One may hear some speakers in Oxford mince brother into brover (brëvë); Bath into Baf; both into bof.
- 1915, Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark:
- "The preacher said it was sympathetic," she minced the word, remembering Mr. Larsen's manner.
- (intransitive) To walk with short steps; to walk in a prim, affected manner.
- 1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC:
- At the last moment Mollie, the foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones's trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing at a lump of sugar.
- 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 3:16:
- The daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, mincing as they go.
- c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act III, scene iv], page 177, column 1:
- I'll […] turn two mincing steps into a manly stride.
- (intransitive) To act or talk with affected nicety; to affect delicacy in manner.
- I love going to gay bars and seeing drag queens mince around on stage.
Usage notes
Current usage in the sense of "to say or utter vaguely" is mostly limited to the phrase "mince words"; e.g., "I won't mince words with you".
Derived terms
Translations
chop fine
|
To suppress or weaken the force of
|
walk in short precise step
act or talk with affected nicety
|
References
- “mince”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
Anagrams
Etymology
Pronunciation
Noun
mince f
Declension
Declension of mince (soft feminine)
Related terms
- mincovna
- mincovní
Further reading
Pronunciation
Etymology 1
Derived from the verb mincer, from Old French mincier, from Vulgar Latin *minūtiāre (cf. also menuiser), from Latin minūtia.
Adjective
mince (plural minces)
Derived terms
Etymology 2
A minced oath of merde (“shit”).
Interjection
mince
Further reading
- “mince”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.
Noun
mince f
Mutation
| Irish mutation | ||
|---|---|---|
| Radical | Lenition | Eclipsis |
| mince | mhince | not applicable |
| Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs. | ||
Noun
mince f (plural minci)
Declension
Declension of mince
References
Noun
mince
- inflection of minca:
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