DIMINUTIVE

a. n.

5 definitions — Webster’s Dictionary (1828)


1.
a.

Below the average size; very small; little.

2.
a.

Expressing diminution; as, a diminutive word.

3.
a.

Tending to diminish. [R.] Diminutive of liberty. Shaftesbury.

4.
n.

Something of very small size or value; an insignificant thing. Such water flies, diminutives of nature. Shak.

5.
n.

A derivative from a noun, denoting a small or a young object of the same kind with that denoted by the primitive; as, gosling, eaglet, lambkin. Babyisms and dear diminutives. Tennyson.