Wiktionary

mince

English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English mincen, minsen; partly from Old English minsian, ġeminsian (“to make less, make smaller, diminish”), from Proto-West Germanic *minnisōn, from Proto-Germanic *minnisōną (“to make less”); partly from Old French mincer, mincier (“to cut into small pieces”), from mince (“slender, slight, puny”), from Frankish *minsto, *minnisto, superlative of *min, *minn (“small, less”), from Proto-Germanic *minniz (“less”); both from Proto-Indo-European *mey- (“small, little”). Cognate with Old Saxon minsōn (“to make less, make smaller”), Old Dutch minson (“to make smaller”), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌽𐌶𐌽𐌰𐌽 (minznan, “to become less, diminish”), Swedish minska (“to reduce, lessen”), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌽𐍃 (mins, “slender, slight”). More at min.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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mince (countable and uncountable, plural minces)

  1. (uncountable) Finely chopped meat; minced meat.
    Mince tastes really good fried in a pan with some chopped onion and tomato.
  2. (uncountable) Finely chopped mixed fruit used in Christmas pies; mincemeat.
    During Christmas time my dad loves to eat mince pies.
  3. (countable) An affected (often dainty or short and precise) gait.
    • 1949, Truman Capote, “Children on their Birthdays”, in A Tree of Night and Other Stories‎[1], page 36:
      A wiry little girl in a starched, lemon-colored party dress, she sassed along with a grownup mince, one hand on her hip, the other supporting a spinsterish umbrella.
    • 1963, John Fowles, The Collector‎[2], page 15:
      She was just the same; she had a light way of walking and she always wore flat heels so she didn't have that mince like most girls.
    • 2010, Tom Zoellner, Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World:
      His skin was china pale, he walked with a slight mince, and his silver mustache was always trimmed sharp; it was his custom to send a bouquet of pink carnations to the wives of men with whom he dined.
  4. (countable) An affected manner, especially of speaking; an affectation.
    • 1896, George Bernard Shaw, “Madame Sans-Gene”, in London Saturday Review:
      A very moderate degree of accomplishment in this direction would make an end of stage smart speech, which, like the got-up Oxford mince and drawl of a foolish curate, is the mark of a snob.
    • 1928, R. M. Pope, The Education Outlook, volume 80, page 285:
      And, further, who has not heard what someone has christened the "Oxford" mince, where every consonant is mispronounced and every vowel gets a wrong value?
    • 2008, Opie Read, The Colossus, page 95:
      [...] a smiling man, portly and impressive, coming toward them with a dignified mince in his walk.
  5. (countable, Cockney rhyming slang, chiefly in the plural) An eye (from mince pie).
    • 2009 May 21, planetdave, “Speed traps”, in PistonHeads‎[3], retrieved 2017-03-22:
      Lancashire is a bit nazi about speed and the M6 in that area can be either clear or infested with vans and their helicopter. On the good side the vans tend to be on well sighted bridges so just keep the old minces peeled.
  6. (UK, slang, uncountable) Something worthless; rubbish.
    That band's new album is total mince.

Quotations

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Verb

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mince (third-person singular simple present minces, present participle mincing, simple past and past participle minced)

  1. (transitive) To make less; to make small.
  2. (transitive) To lessen; to diminish; to diminish in speaking; to speak of lightly or slightingly; to minimise.
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:diminish
  3. (transitive, rare) To effect mincingly.
  4. (transitive, cooking) To cut into very small pieces; to chop finely.
    Butchers often use machines to mince meat.
  5. (archaic, transitive, figuratively) To suppress or weaken the force of.
    Synonyms: extenuate, palliate, weaken
    • 1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Friar, or the Double Discovery:
      Siren, now mince the sin, / And mollify damnation with a phrase.
  6. To say or utter vaguely (not directly or frankly).
    • 1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene ii]:
      I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say — "I love you."
    • 2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: ELAADEN (HNS) - Nora Tallis Found Alive:
      Despite prolonged exposure to harsh conditions, medics say Nora Tallis returned to the Nexus in stable condition. In a statement to HNS, Tallis did not mince words. "Never send me to that hellhole again."
    to mince one's words
    a minced oath
  7. (transitive) To affect; to pronounce affectedly or with an accent.
    • 1869, Alexander J. Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation, with special reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer, part 1, page 194:
      In some districts of England ll is sounded like w, thus bowd (booud) for BOLD, bw (buu) for BULL, caw (kau) for CALL. But this pronunciation is merely a provincialism, and not to be imitated unless you wish to mince like these blunderers.
    • 1905, George Henderson, The Gaelic Dialects, IV, in the Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, published by Kuno Meyer and L. Chr. Stern, volume 5, page 98:
      One may hear some speakers in Oxford mince brother into brover (brëvë); Bath into Baf; both into bof.
    • 1915, Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark:
      "The preacher said it was sympathetic," she minced the word, remembering Mr. Larsen's manner.
  8. (intransitive) To walk with short steps; to walk in a prim, affected manner.
  9. (intransitive) To act or talk with affected nicety; to affect delicacy in manner.
    I love going to gay bars and seeing drag queens mince around on stage.

Usage notes

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Current usage in the sense of "to say or utter vaguely" is mostly limited to the phrase "mince words"; e.g., "I won't mince words with you".

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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Anagrams

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Czech

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Etymology

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Borrowed from German Münze.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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mince f

  1. coin
    Synonyms: peníz, moneta
    Hyponyms: měďák, stříbrňák, zlaťák
    hodit si mincí ― flip a coin

Declension

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Declension of mince (soft feminine)
singular plural
nominative mince mince
genitive mince mincí
dative minci mincím
accusative minci mince
vocative mince mince
locative minci mincích
instrumental mincí mincemi
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Further reading

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  • “mince”, in Příruční slovník jazyka českého (in Czech), 1935–1957
  • “mince”, in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého (in Czech), 1960–1971, 1989
  • “mince”, in Internetová jazyková příručka (in Czech)

French

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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Derived from the verb mincer, from Old French mincier, from Vulgar Latin *minūtiāre (cf. also menuiser), from Latin minūtia.

Adjective

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mince (plural minces)

  1. thin, slim, slender
Derived terms
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Etymology 2

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A minced oath of merde (“shit”).

Interjection

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mince

  1. drat!, darn!
  2. wow!, blimey!

Further reading

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Irish

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Noun

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mince f

  1. genitive singular of minc (“mink”)

Mutation

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Mutated forms of mince
radical lenition eclipsis
mince mhince not applicable

Note: Certain mutated forms of some words can never occur in standard Modern Irish.
All possible mutated forms are displayed for convenience.

Romanian

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Noun

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mince f (plural minci)

  1. Obsolete form of minge.

Declension

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singular plural
indefinite definite indefinite definite
nominative-accusative mince mincea minci mincile
genitive-dative minci mincii minci mincilor
vocative mince, minceo mincilor

References

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  • mince in Academia Română, Micul dicționar academic, ediția a II-a, Bucharest: Univers Enciclopedic, 2010. →ISBN

Slovak

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Noun

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mince

  1. inflection of minca:
    1. genitive singular
    2. nominative/accusative plural
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