minerals
- 1Plural of mineral.
Geologists identified several minerals in the sample under the microscope.
A balanced diet supplies the minerals the body needs to stay healthy.
Note
A regular -s plural whose meaning shifts with its company. Geologists count minerals in a rock sample. Nutrition speaks of vitamins and minerals, meaning the inorganic elements a diet must supply. In Ireland, Nigeria and South Africa, informal minerals are soft drinks, often single-serve bottles or cans. In British use a mineral can also be a mineral water, so the plural can mean several of them.
- 2A man's testicles, often used figuratively to mean nerve or courage.
It took some serious minerals to walk up there and confront the whole crowd.
He doubled over after the ball struck him square in the minerals.
Similarballs, nuts, guts, nerve, cojones
Note
A euphemism that swaps one word for a politer-sounding one: minerals stands in for balls, and like it, it usually means nerve rather than anatomy. It exists only in the plural, since nobody has a mineral, and it sits naturally after have got: he hasn't got the minerals. The slang is dated now and reads as wry or old-fashioned. Out of context it is easily taken for the ordinary plural.
minerals is a form of mineral
mineral, noun: A naturally occurring material, usually inorganic, with a fairly definite chemical composition and characteristic physical properties. Full entry
- Forms
- mineralminerals plural
- Spelling
- mineral → minerals: add -s
- Sound
- The ending sounds like /z/.
Use it in a sentence
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