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smidgen.

Chiefly in the form a smidgen of: a very small amount or quantity; a bit, a trace.

7 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/ˈsmɪd͡ʒɪn/Received-Pronunciation/ˈsmɪd͡ʒɪn/General-American/-ən/General-American
  1. Chiefly in the form a smidgen of: a very small amount or quantity; a bit, a trace.

    informal
    Move it a smidgen to the right.
    Would you like some more cake? ―I’ll have a smidgen.
  2. Chiefly in the form a smidgen of a: a very small or insignificant person or thing; also, an instance of such a person or thing.

    broadly · informal
Where this word comes from

Origin uncertain; possibly from smitch (“(originally Scotland, chiefly US) very small amount or quantity”) + possibly -in (a variant of -ing (suffix forming nouns denoting things considered collectively)). Smitch is possibly: * derived from smitch (“smoke from a burning or smouldering thing; spot of dirt; blemish; dirt, grime”), a variant of smeech (“(southwest England) (dense or pungent) smoke; airborne dust”), from Middle English smeche, smek, smiche (“smoke from a burning or smouldering thing; cloud of smoke; fumes, vapour; smell”), from Old English smēc, smīc (“smoke; steam; vapour”), from Proto-West Germanic *smauki (“smoke”), related to Proto-Germanic *smeukaną (“to fume, smoke”), from Proto-Indo-European *smewgʰ- (“smoke”); or * borrowed from Scots smitch (“smudge, stain; blemish; very small amount, speck, trace; small insignificant person”), possibly a variant of English smutch (“dirty mark, smudge, stain; dirt, grime; slight indication”) (probably related to smudge, ultimate etymology unknown) and influenced by English smit (“(UK, dialectal) a stain”).

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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.