Tiny

How to spell tiny

4 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce tiny

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does tiny mean?

1. adjectiveExtremely small in size, amount, or degree.

Tiny in a sentence

• The flat had a tiny kitchen with barely room for two people.

• She added just a tiny amount of salt to the soup.

Where does tiny come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

Tiny grew out of the Middle English word 'tine', which meant a very small amount or a little bit, and the adjective sense was formed by adding the suffix '-y' to it. The earlier form was actually written 'tine' or 'tyne', and it often appeared in the phrase 'a tine bit', meaning a small bit, before the standalone adjective settled into use around the late 1500s. The origin of the original noun is not entirely clear, which is why some dictionaries mark it as uncertain. Over time the spelling stabilised as 'tiny', with the long 'i' sound that we hear today, and it came to mean simply very small or minute. The word is a good example of how a humble little noun about small quantities turned into one of the most common English adjectives for smallness.

How the word is built

• tine (a small bit, variant of Middle English 'tine/tyne')
• -y (adjective suffix)