Mini

How to spell mini

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce mini

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does mini mean?

1. adjectiveVery small in size, or a reduced version of something larger.
2. nounA very short skirt or dress.

Mini in a sentence

• adjective

  The hotel room came with a mini fridge stocked with snacks.

• noun

  She wore a denim mini with tall boots to the party.

• adjective

  She packed a mini bottle of shampoo for the flight.

• noun

  The boutique window displayed a bright red mini for summer.

Where does mini come from?

Language of origin: Latin

Mini began life as a clipped form of words such as 'miniature' and 'minimum', and behind both of those stands the Latin root minus, meaning 'less', along with its superlative minimus, meaning 'smallest'. Curiously, 'miniature' itself did not originally mean 'tiny': it came from the Latin miniare, 'to paint with red lead' (minium), which described the small illustrations painted into medieval manuscripts; because those paintings were small, the word drifted toward meaning 'very small'. By the early twentieth century English speakers were treating 'mini' as a free-standing prefix and word for anything reduced in size, and the 1960s cemented it in popular use through the Mini motor car and the miniskirt. Today it functions happily on its own and as a productive prefix, attaching to almost any noun to signal a smaller version. The spelling is simply the first syllable, with a single n and an -i ending rather than the -y many writers expect.

How the word is built

• mini- (small, from Latin minimus 'smallest' via minimum/miniature)