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say it: di-MI-nyuh-tiv
diminutive is a noun and adjective meaning "a word that is formed with a suffix (such as -let or -kin) to indicate smallness". It carries 2 recorded senses.
a word that is formed with a suffix (such as -let or -kin) to indicate smallness
very small
“diminutive in stature”
“a lilliputian chest of drawers”
“her petite figure”
“tiny feet”
“the flyspeck nation of Bahrain moved toward democracy”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for diminutive come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.