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The sixtieth part of an hour; sixty seconds. (Abbrev. m.; as, 4 h. 30 m.) Four minutes, that is to say, minutes of an hour. Chaucer.

A figure which strikes the hour on the bell of some fanciful clocks; -- called also jack of the clock house.

In a minute manner; with minuteness; exactly; nicely.

A militiaman who was to be ready to march at a moment's notice; -- a term used in the American Revolution.

The quality of being minute.

ampère. It is used as a unit of quantity, and is equal to 3600 coulombs. The terms Ampère minute and Ampère second are sometimes similarly used.

To reduce to minute particles, or to a fine powder; to pulverize; to triturate; to grind; as, to comminute chalk or bones; to comminute food with the teeth. Pennant. Comminuted fracture. See under Fracture.

Small; diminished; diminutive. [Obs.] Jer. Taylor.

Diminutively. [Obs.]

One of a college of seventy-two officers of the papal court whose duty is to make a short minute of a decision on a petition, or reply of the pope to a letter, and afterwards expand the minute into official form.

the sun, in consequence of which they daily come to the meridian of any place about three minutes fifty-six seconds of solar time earlier than on the day preceding. -- Acceleration of the planets, the increasing velocity of their motion, in proceeding from the apogee to the perigee of their orbits.

Consisting of acini, or minute granular concretions; as, acinose or acinous glands. Kirwan.

Having nice discernment; perceiving or using minute distinctions; penetrating; clever; shrewd; -- opposed to Ant: dull or Ant: stupid; as, an acute observer; acute remarks, or reasoning.

ted; act of bringing into proper relations; regulation. Success depends on the nicest and minutest adjustment of the parts concerned. Paley.

A long time. [Colloq.] "He made minutes an age." Tennyson. Age of a tide, the time from the origin of a tide in the South Pacific Ocean to its arrival at a given place. -- Moon's age, the time that has elapsed since the last preceding conjunction of the sun and moon.

A receptacle of air in various parts of the system; as, a cell or minute cavity in the walls of the air tubes of the lungs; the air sac of birds; a dilatation of the air vessels in insects.

An albuminoid substance which occurs in minute grains ("protein granules") in maturing seeds and tubers; -- supposed to be a modification of protoplasm.

A state of being amorphous; esp. a state of being without crystallization even in the minutest particles, as in glass, opal, etc.

phibians, inhabiting the Southern United States, having a serpentlike form, but with four minute limbs and two persistent gill openings; the Congo snake.

To discriminate minutely or carefully; to analyze. If we anatomize all other reasonings of this nature, we shall find that they are founded on the relation of cause and effect. Hume.