mince
/mɪns/ noun, verb
Forms minces mincing minced minch minse
- noun (uncountable) Finely chopped meat; minced meat. “Mince tastes really good fried in a pan with some chopped onion and tomato.”
- noun (uncountable) Finely chopped mixed fruit used in Christmas pies; mincemeat. “During Christmas time my dad loves to eat mince pies.”
- noun (countable) An affected (often dainty or short and precise) gait.
- noun (countable) An affected manner, especially of speaking; an affectation.
- noun (countable, Cockney rhyming slang, chiefly in the plural) An eye (from mince pie).
- noun (UK, slang, uncountable) Something worthless; rubbish. “That band's new album is total mince.”
- verb (transitive) To make less; to make small.
- verb (transitive) To lessen; to diminish; to diminish in speaking; to speak of lightly or slightingly; to minimise.
- verb (transitive, rare) To effect mincingly.
- verb (transitive, cooking) To cut into very small pieces; to chop finely. “Butchers often use machines to mince meat.”
- verb (archaic, transitive, figuratively) To suppress or weaken the force of.
- verb To say or utter vaguely (not directly or frankly). “to mince one's words”
- verb (transitive) To affect; to pronounce affectedly or with an accent.
- verb (intransitive) To walk with short steps; to walk in a prim, affected manner.
Synonyms
abase abate belittle besmall bring down embase cut decrease decrement diminish foreshorten lessen lilliputianize lower minimize reduce shrink smallify extenuate palliate soften moderate
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.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To cut into very small pieces; to chop fine; to hash; as, to mince meat. Bacon.
- verb To suppress or weaken the force of; to extenuate; to palliate; to tell by degrees, instead of directly and frankly; to clip, as words or expressions; to utter half and keep back half of. I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say -- "I love you." Shak.
- verb To walk with short steps; to walk in a prim, affected manner.
- verb To act or talk with affected nicety; to affect delicacy in manner.
Etymology [AS. minsian to grow less, dwindle, fr. min small; akin to G. minder less, Goth. minniza less, mins less, adv., L. minor, adj. (cf. Minor); or more likely fr. F. mincer to mince, prob. from (assumed) LL. minutiare. Minish.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “mince”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details