small

Meanings

1. 1
   adj

   Not large in size or amount.

   She ordered a small serving of ice cream.

2. 2
   adj

   Limited in size or importance.

   He runs a small business from home.

3. 3
   adj

   Young, as a child.

   Remember when the children were small?

4. 4
   adj

   Of a letter, lowercase rather than capital.

   Write your name with a small letter, not a capital.

Appears in

Simplified etymology

Small has been recorded in English since about AD 700. In Old English it could mean slender or narrow as well as generally less than the usual size; later uses such as small beer helped produce the figurative sense “insignificant.”

From Middle English smal, from Old English smæl (“small, narrow, slender”), from Proto-Germanic *smalaz (“small”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)mal-, *(s)mel- (“small, mean, malicious”). Cognate with Scots smal; sma (“small”); West Frisian smel (“narrow”); Dutch smal (“narrow”); German schmal (“narrow, small”); Low German small (“narrow”); Danish, Norwegian, Swedish smal (“narrow; thin; slender”); Latin malus (“bad”); Russian ма́лый (mályj, “small”).

Topics

External links

• Google Images
• Cambridge Dictionary
• Wiktionary