miniature

Pluralminiatures

Formsminiatures, miniaturing, miniatured

1. 1
   adjective

   Of a smaller size than is normal for things of its kind.

   Breeders have developed miniature versions of several popular dog breeds.

   Surgeons guided a miniature camera through the artery to find the blockage.

   Similarsmall, tiny, minute, diminutive

   Oppositegiant, full-size, large

   Note

   The adjective usually stands before its noun: miniature dogs, or the "Miniature brains grown in lab" of a 2013 Guardian Weekly headline. When it is compared, it takes more and most, as in a more miniature version, rather than adding -er or -est.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A small version of something, such as a model made to a reduced scale.

   A detailed miniature of the cathedral sits in a glass case by the entrance.

   In many ways the village fair was a miniature of the town's whole social life.

   Similarmodel, replica, microcosm

   Note

   The word turns figurative easily, moving from a ship in a bottle to any small thing that mirrors a larger whole. James George Frazer's The Golden Bough calls the twelve days from Christmas to Epiphany a miniature of the whole year, each day answering to a month. In this use it usually takes of: a miniature of the year, of a town's social life.

3. 3
   noununcountable

   A size, form, or scale that is greatly reduced from the usual.

   The exhibit recreates the entire harbor in miniature, down to the fishing nets.

   Each rock pool is an ocean in miniature, with its own hunters and prey.

4. 4
   nouncountable

   A small, highly detailed painting, often a portrait of a single person.

   The miniature showed the young officer in his dress uniform, every button picked out in gold.

   Collectors pay high prices for eighteenth-century miniatures still in their original frames.

5. 5
   nouncountable

   A small figure or token used in a board game or role-playing game to represent a unit or character.

   She painted her wizard miniature in blue and silver before game night.

   The tabletop battle used more than two hundred miniatures, each one a different soldier.

   Similarfigure

   Note

   Tabletop players use it for the figure that stands in for one soldier or character, and painting them is part of the pleasure: a wargamer may field dozens of Napoleonic foot soldiers, each in detailed period regalia. The word is nearly always counted, since an army or an adventuring party is built from many of them.

6. 6
   nouncountable

   An illustration that decorates a page of an illuminated manuscript.

   Scholars dated the manuscript by studying the style of its miniatures.

   A gold-leaf miniature of a harvest scene fills the margin of the opening page.

   Similarillumination

   Note

   Here the word stays closest to its source. Italian miniatura meant manuscript illumination; it comes from miniare, "to illuminate", and through Latin miniō, "to color red", from minium, red lead. The root is a pigment, not any word for smallness, however strongly the "reduced scale" meaning now suggests one.

7. 7
   noununcountable

   The art of painting small, highly detailed pictures, such as tiny portraits.

   The academy offers a two-year course in Mughal miniature, taught in the traditional way.

   She gave up oils and devoted the rest of her career to miniature.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   A musical composition of short duration.

   The concert opened with a miniature for solo flute that lasted barely two minutes.

   Critics singled out her cycle of twelve orchestral miniatures as the highlight of the festival.

9. 9
   verbtransitive

   To make something smaller than normal, or to reproduce it on a reduced scale.

   Model makers who miniature historic ships must scale down every rope and plank.

   The painting miniatures the whole valley in a frame no bigger than a postcard.

   Similarminiaturize, shrink

   Oppositeenlarge

   Note

   This verb has a long life in imaginative prose. Samuel Jackson Pratt's Emma Corbett (1780) sees the murdered Edward's features "miniatur'd forth" in a baby's smile, and Samuel R. Delany's Nova (1968) has a moon holding its glories "miniatured in rock and dust". It conjugates regularly, and its third-person miniatures is spelled exactly like the plural noun.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A game of chess that is over after only a very small number of moves.

    Her third-round win was a sparkling miniature, finished before most players had left the opening.

    The coach shows beginners classic miniatures to warn them against grabbing pawns too early.

    Note

    Chess players keep the word for short games with a decisive finish, usually a sharp attack punishing an early blunder; a quick agreed draw does not qualify. Famous miniatures are studied for the opening traps they expose, which is why they make good warnings for beginners tempted to grab material too soon.

11. 11
    nouncountable

    A particular feature or trait of someone or something, such as one of the features of a face.

    There's no miniature / In her fair face, but is a copious theme / Which would, discoursed at large of, make a volume.

    1627, Philip Massinger, “The Great Duke of Florence”

    Note

    In seventeenth-century drama the word could mean a single detail of a face or a person, with no idea of size at all. Philip Massinger's The Great Duke of Florence (1627) praises a fair face in which there is no miniature that would not fill a volume if discussed at large. Read it there as feature or trait.

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