English

Noun

minutia ‎(plural minutiae or minutiæ)

1. A minor detail, often of negligible importance.

   They spent all their time on minutiae, never making real progress.

2. (biometrics, forensics) Any of the major features of a fingerprint that allow prints to be compared.

Translations

Latin

Etymology

Derived from minūtus ‎(“diminished”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /miˈnuː.ti.a/, [mɪˈnuː.ti.a]

Noun

minūtia f ‎(genitive minūtiae); first declension

1. smallness, fineness, minuteness

Inflection

First declension.

Descendants

References

• minutia in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• MINUTIA in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• Félix Gaffiot (1934), “minutia”, in Dictionnaire Illustré Latin-Français, Paris: Hachette.