minikin

English

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch minnekijn (“darling, beloved”), from minne (“love”) (cf. minnesinger) and the diminutive suffix -kijn.

Noun

minikin (countable and uncountable, plural minikins)

(obsolete) A young person, especially a young woman.
(obsolete) A small or insignificant person, thing or amount.
(obsolete) A little pin.
(uncountable, UK printing, dated) The size of type smaller than brilliant, standardized as 3-point.

Synonyms

(type size): (US) excelsior

Translations

3-point type — see excelsior

Adjective

minikin (comparative more minikin, superlative most minikin)

(obsolete) Diminutive or miniature.

Etymology 2

From Miniken, a 16th-century English form of the place name Munich, a German city where such strings were produced and from which they were imported. Miniken is derived from then-contemporary German Münichen.^[1]^[2]

Noun

minikin (countable and uncountable, plural minikins)

The treble string of a lute.

Derived terms

minikin gut

References

^ Philip Durkin, The Oxford Guide to Etymology (2009), pages 275-276: "English minikin, the name of a type of lute string which Munich was famous for producing in the sixteenth century, is from Miniken, an older form of the name of the city in English, which itself reflects German Münichen, an older trisyllabic form of the place name."
^ Andreas Gröger, Revising German Etymologies in the Oxford English Dictionary", chapter 16 of Dictionary Visions, Research and Practice (ed. Henrik Gottlieb, Jens Erik Mogensen; 2007), pages 250-251: Miniken "deriv[es] from the contemporary German form Münichen and show[s] the unrounding of [Y] to [I] typical of the Bavarian regional dialect. Two articles in (non-linguistic) scholarly journals independently confirmed the etymology, stating that minikins were manufactured in Munich and were an expensive, imported item in 16th-century England. [...] Consequently, OED3 features two homonymic entries [split by etymology]."

[1] Philip Durkin, The Oxford Guide to Etymology (2009), pages 275-276: "English minikin, the name of a type of lute string which Munich was famous for producing in the sixteenth century, is from Miniken, an older form of the name of the city in English, which itself reflects German Münichen, an older trisyllabic form of the place name."

[2] Andreas Gröger, Revising German Etymologies in the Oxford English Dictionary", chapter 16 of Dictionary Visions, Research and Practice (ed. Henrik Gottlieb, Jens Erik Mogensen; 2007), pages 250-251: Miniken "deriv[es] from the contemporary German form Münichen and show[s] the unrounding of [Y] to [I] typical of the Bavarian regional dialect. Two articles in (non-linguistic) scholarly journals independently confirmed the etymology, stating that minikins were manufactured in Munich and were an expensive, imported item in 16th-century England. [...] Consequently, OED3 features two homonymic entries [split by etymology]."

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