overwordExplorer
ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

minute.

A unit of time which is one sixtieth of an hour (sixty seconds).

6 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈmɪnɪt/
  1. A unit of time which is one sixtieth of an hour (sixty seconds).

    You have twenty minutes to complete the test.
  2. A short but unspecified time period.

    informal
    give me a minute
    Wait a minute, I’m not ready yet!
  3. A unit of angle equal to one-sixtieth of a degree.

    We need to be sure these maps are accurate to within one minute of arc.
  4. A (usually formal) written record of a meeting or a part of a meeting.

    in-plural
    Let’s look at the minutes of last week’s meeting.
  5. A unit of purchase on a telephone or other similar network, especially a cell phone network, roughly equivalent in gross form to sixty seconds' use of the network.

    If you buy this model, you’ll get 100 free minutes.
  6. A point in time; a moment.

    I conked out the minute I got home.
  7. A nautical or a geographic mile.

  8. An old coin, a half farthing.

  9. A very small part of anything, or anything very small; a jot; a whit.

    obsolete
  10. A fixed part of a module.

  11. A while or a long unspecified period of time.

    Canada · US · dialectal · slang
    Oh, I ain't heard that song in a minute!
  12. The distance that can be traveled in a minute.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English mynute, minute, mynet, from Old French minute, from Medieval Latin minūta (“60th of an hour; note”). Doublet of menu and menudo.

verb/ˈmɪnɪt/
  1. Of an event, to write in a memo or the minutes of a meeting.

    transitive
    I’ll minute this evening’s meeting.
  2. To set down a short sketch or note of; to jot down; to make a minute or a brief summary of.

Where this word comes from

From Middle English mynute, minute, mynet, from Old French minute, from Medieval Latin minūta (“60th of an hour; note”). Doublet of menu and menudo.

adj[maɪ̯ˈnjuːt]Received-Pronunciation[maɪ̯ˈnjʊwt]Received-Pronunciation[maɪ̯ˈn(j)u̟(ː)t]US[mɐ̟ɪ̯ˈn(j)u̟(ː)t]Canada
  1. Very small.

    They found only minute quantities of chemical residue on his clothing.
  2. Very careful and exact, giving small details.

    The lawyer gave the witness a minute examination.
Where this word comes from

Borrowed from Latin minūtus (“small", "petty”), perfect passive participle of minuō (“make smaller”).

FROM WORD TO NAME

Try it on your idea.

minute has 6 characters. Say it out loud, try it alongside a description of your project, and see whether its meaning fits what you want to create.

minute studiominute workshello, minute

These are naming prompts. Meanings and pronunciation can vary; existing brand and domain uses have not been checked.

Explore the name generator

A word with a source.

Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.