minnow
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: simple
Topics: ball-games
cricket
fishing
games
hobbies
lifestyle
soccer
sports
Etymology: The noun is derived from Late Middle English menew, menowe (“small fish; (specifically) common minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus); or stickleback (possibly the three-spined stickleback, Gasterosteus aculeatus)”), from Old English *mynwe, an oblique form of *mynu, a variant of myne (“minnow; small fish”), from Proto-West Germanic *muniwu (“minnow; small fish”), from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“small”). Possibly influenced by Anglo-Norman menu (“small”) and Old French menu (“small”), and English minim (“anything very minute; applied to animalcula and the like”).
The adjective and verb are derived from the noun.
Cognates
* Middle Low German mone, möne (Dutch meun, West Frisian meun)
* Old High German muniwa, munuwa, munewa (modern German Münne (“minnow”))
* Latin mēna (“small sea-fish”)
Inflected forms:
form: minnows
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: minnie
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: minny
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: minow
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: menow
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: menoe
pos: noun
tags: alternative
form: minnows
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: minnowing
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: minnowed
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: minnowed
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: Any of certain small fish.
pos: noun
examples: I have obſerved, as I have ſat by a ſpout of vvater, vvhich decſends from a ſtone trough about tvvo feet into a ſtream belovv, at particular ſeaſons of the year, a great number of little fiſh called minums, or pinks, throvv themſelves about tvventy times their ovvn length out of the vvater, expecting to get into the trough above.
I wonder King George is let venture down on this coast, where he might be snapped up in a moment like a minnow by a her'n, so near as we be to the field of Boney's vagaries!
During the past week he had indulged in sundry sly purchases, […] They included […] a remarkable collection of fishing tackle, which the sporting-goods man had declared fitted to catch anything that swam, from a whale to a minnow.
gloss: Any of certain small fish.
pos: noun
examples: Most minnows are small fish with cycloid scales, soft rays supporting their fins, and toothless jaws. Some possess barbels on their upper jaw, and many species develop nuptial tubercles during the breeding season. […] Minnows are arguably the most difficult group of freshwater fishes to identify, in part because they are often small and thus the characters distinguishing them are correspondingly small.
gloss: Any of certain small fish.
pos: noun
gloss: Any of certain small fish.
pos: noun
tags: US
gloss: Any of certain small fish.
pos: noun
tags: Australia
New-Zealand
gloss: Any of certain small fish.
pos: noun
tags: UK
regional
examples: In quiet, sheltered places, where the water is clear but does not run too swiftly, the ‘minnie,’ as the stickleback is locally called, makes its nest by the bank. […] On these fibres the ova are deposited, and they are then either purposely partly covered with sand by the minnie, or else the particles that are brought down by the current gather over the bundle of fibres and conceal it, excepting one small spot.
gloss: A person or thing of relatively little consequence, importance, or value.
pos: noun
tags: figuratively
examples: Let him denie that there was another shewe made of the little minnow his Brother, Dodrans Dicke, at Peter-houſe, called, Duns furens. Dick Harvey in a frenſie.
Heare you this Triton of the Minnoues?
[H]e was in the receipt of some per centage on its dealings; and, participating in all its facilities for the employment of money to advantage, was considered, by the minnows among the tritons of the East, a rich man.
Having spent more than £500,000 on players last summer, Crawley can hardly be classed as minnows but they have still punched way above their weight and this kind of performance means no-one will relish pulling them out of the hat in Sunday's draw.
[…]Swed House signed contracts with Ikea's former production sites, swelling from being an online retailer into an operation employing 100 people and running 10 shops across Russia and Belarus[…] . But it remains a minnow compared with its Swedish predecessor, which employed 15,000 people and made $1.5bn in revenues during its last financial year in Russia.
The breadth of the potential impact became clear in an odd feature of the tariff list: Mr. Trump reserved his steepest rates not for America’s more economically advanced trading partners, but for economic minnows across Africa and Asia.
gloss: A person or thing of relatively little consequence, importance, or value.
pos: noun
tags: especially
figuratively
gloss: An artificial bait in the form of a small fish.
pos: noun
examples: […] I have (which I will show you) an artificial minnow, that will catch a trout as well as an artificial fly, and it was made by a handsome woman that had a fine hand, and a live minnow lying by her: […]
gloss: To fish for minnows (noun sense 1 and subsenses).
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
gloss: To fish, especially for trout, using minnows as bait.
pos: verb
tags: intransitive
Derived words: faster than a minnow can swim a dipper
minnock
minnow basher
minnow bashing
minnowed
mud minnow
pikeminnow
quicker than a minnow can swim a dipper
satinfin minnow
spottail minnow
minnower
Translations:
lang: Dutch
word: ondermaatse vis
lang: Finnish
word: pikkukala
lang: Finnish
word: sintti
lang: French
word: fretin
lang: Hungarian
word: halacska
lang: Hungarian
word: kis hal
lang: Macedonian
word: ри́пче
roman: rípče
lang: Macedonian
word: си́тна ри́ба
roman: sítna ríba
lang: Māori
word: pokotehe
lang: Polish
word: płotka
lang: Portuguese
word: peixinho
lang: Russian
word: рыбка
roman: rybka
lang: Scottish Gaelic
word: sgiolag
lang: Spanish
word: pececillo
lang: Thai
word: ซิว
roman: siu
lang: Unami
word: namètët
lang: Finnish
word: pikkutekijä
lang: Macedonian
word: си́тна ри́ба
roman: sítna ríba
lang: Portuguese
word: peixe pequeno