smidgen

English

Alternative forms

• smidge, smidgeon, smidget, smidgin

Etymology

Likely based on a variant of smiddum, smeddum (“fine powder”), influenced by Scots smitch (“stain, speck, small amount, trace”). Alternatively, from *smitching, a diminutive of smitch. Compare Northumbrian dialectal English smiddum (“small particle of lead ore; smitham”). Scots smitch, also smutch, likely derives from English dialectal smit, smite (“bit, small portion”), Old English smytta, smitta (“a smear, blot, spot, mark, pollution”), related to Old English smītan (“to daub, smear, smudge”); or possibly from *smuddian, *smyddan, *smydecian, *smydegian (“to soil, stain, taint, blacken”), perhaps related to Middle Low German smudde (“dirt, filth”), smudden (“to soil, make dirty”), Middle High German smotzen (“to be dirty”). If so, then cognate with smudge.

Alternate etymology connects smidgeon with Scottish Gaelic smidin (“small syllable”), though this is highly improbable considering the implied semantic shift that would have to have occurred.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈsmɪd͡ʒən/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪdʒən, -ɪdʒɪn

Noun

smidgen (plural smidgens)

1. A very small quantity or amount.

   Synonyms: hair's breadth; see also Thesaurus:modicum

   Would you like some more cake? —I'll have a smidgen.

   Move it a smidgen to the right.

   • 1907, Will N. Harben, chapter XXXVII, in Mam' Linda‎^[2]:

     I could listen to forty million men like this candidate expound his views and it wouldn't alter me one smidgen in the belief that Carson Dwight has acted only as a true Christian would.

   • 1921, William Patterson White, chapter XVIII, in The Heart of the Range‎^[3]:

     "You did! Aw right, you go right in and tell 'em the truth, all of it, every last smidgen."

Usage notes

Some cookbooks and manufacturers of kitchen measurement sets have attempted to define a smidgen for recipes. Anything between ¹⁄₂₅ and ¹⁄₄₈ of a teaspoon may be found, ¹⁄₃₂ being perhaps the most commonly used. Other commonly used measures for small amounts include tad, dash, pinch, and drop. There seems to be some consensus of tad being the largest in this set and a smidgen being larger than a drop but smaller than a pinch.

Derived terms

• a smidgen

Translations

very small amount

• Bulgarian: парченце (bg) (parčence), малко количество (malko količestvo)
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 少量 (zh) (shǎoliàng)

• Finnish: hitunen (fi), rahtu (fi), hiukkanen (fi), hippunen
• French: chouïa (fr)
• German: Quäntchen (de) n, Quentchen (de) n
• Irish: ruainnín m
• Japanese: ちょっぴり (ja) (choppiri), 少量 (ja) (しょうりょう, shōryō)
• Korean: 소량 (ko) (soryang)
• Maori: ngarengare
• Polish: kapka (pl) f
• Portuguese: pouquinho m
• Russian: ка́пля (ru) f (káplja), чу́точка (ru) f (čútočka), ма́лость (ru) f (málostʹ)
• Serbo-Croatian: komadić, djelić, mrvica (sh), mrva (sh)
• Swedish: gnutta (sv) c, smula (sv) c
• Welsh: mymryn m

Anagrams

• Demings, Dengism