| / English Dictionary |
MINIATURE
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A copy that reproduces a person or thing in greatly reduced size
Synonyms:
miniature; toy
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("miniature" is a kind of...):
copy (a thing made to be similar or identical to another thing)
Derivation:
miniaturise; miniaturize (design or construct on a smaller scale)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Painting or drawing included in a book (especially in illuminated medieval manuscripts)
Synonyms:
illumination; miniature
Classified under:
Nouns denoting man-made objects
Hypernyms ("miniature" is a kind of...):
painting; picture (graphic art consisting of an artistic composition made by applying paints to a surface)
Domain category:
Dark Ages; Middle Ages (the period of history between classical antiquity and the Italian Renaissance)
Derivation:
miniaturist (someone who paints tiny pictures in great detail)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Being on a very small scale
Example:
a miniature camera
Classified under:
Similar:
little; small (limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent)
Context examples:
"Look here," said he, unfolding a parcel in his hand, and displaying a small miniature painting, "do you know who that is?"
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
During all my childhood he was only a name to me, and a face in a miniature hung round my mother’s neck.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Several minutes later, rounding a turn in the trail where the descent was less precipitous, he joined them in the midst of a miniature avalanche of pebbles and loose soil.
(Love of Life and Other Stories, by Jack London)
Specimens were positioned in a sample holder on a miniature mechanical stage that could be moved to adjust the depth and focus.
(Smartphone microscope detects nanoparticles and viruses, NIH)
The Italian Greyhound is a miniature Greyhound with a long head thinning gradually to a pointed muzzle.
(Italian Greyhound, NCI Thesaurus)
The scientists discovered evidence that the specimen harbored a benign tumor made up of miniature, tooth-like structures.
(Scientists discover fossil tumor in 255 million-year-old mammal forerunner, NSF)
An hour or two sufficed to sketch my own portrait in crayons; and in less than a fortnight I had completed an ivory miniature of an imaginary Blanche Ingram.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Miniatures, half-lengths, whole-lengths, pencil, crayon, and water-colours had been all tried in turn.
(Emma, by Jane Austen)
In rare occasions, tumor cells may replicate the structure of the early embryo, forming "embryoid bodies" replete with germ discs and miniature amniotic cavities.
(Central Nervous System Embryonal Carcinoma, NCI Thesaurus/Adapted from WHO)
An inbred strain of miniature swine developed by Sachs et al at the NIH in 1976 from a cross between a Hormel pig and a Vita Vet miniature pig.
(NIH Minipig, NCI Thesaurus)
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