Etimology
From Middle English mynute, minute, mynet, from Old French minute, from Medieval Latin minūta (“60th of an hour; note”). Doublet of menu and menudo.
noun
minute (plural minutes)
A unit of time which is one sixtieth of an hour (sixty seconds).
(informal) A short but unspecified time period.
A unit of angle equal to one-sixtieth of a degree.
(chiefly in the plural, minutes) A (usually formal) written record of a meeting or a part of a meeting.
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.
A point in time; a moment.
A nautical or a geographic mile.
An old coin, a half farthing.
(obsolete) A very small part of anything, or anything very small; a jot; a whit.
(architecture) A fixed part of a module.
(slang, US, Canada, dialectal) A while or a long unspecified period of time
Examples
You have twenty minutes to complete the test.
Wait a minute, I’m not ready yet!
Synonyms: instant, jiffy, mo, moment, sec, second, tic
We need to be sure these maps are accurate to within one minute of arc.
Synonyms: minute of arc, sexagesm
Let’s look at the minutes of last week’s meeting.
The Clerk or 'recording Clerk' drafts a minute and then, or at a later time, reads it to the Meeting. Subsequent contributions are on the wording of the minute only, until it can be accepted by the Meeting. Once the minute is accepted, the Meeting moves on to the next item on the agenda.
If you buy this model, you’ll get 100 free minutes.
Tell her, that I some Certainty may bring; / I go this minute to attend the king.
[…] according to the Prophecies of him, which were so clear and descended to minutes and circumstances of his passion
Oh, I ain't heard that song in a minute!
“Man, I haven’t seen you in a minute,” he says, smiling still. “Maybe like two, three years ago?”
I seen Too$hort up there. Me and $hort ain't talked in a minute.
RON:I remember my first. I was a minute younger than you. […] I remember thinking, saying to myself..."This is the first time I'm eating as a person who killed someone."
verb
minute (third-person singular simple present minutes, present participle minuting, simple past and past participle minuted)
(transitive) Of an event, to write in a memo or the minutes of a meeting.
To set down a short sketch or note of; to jot down; to make a minute or a brief summary of.
Examples
I’ll minute this evening’s meeting.
I dare say there was a vast amount of minuting, memoranduming, and despatch-boxing, on this mighty subject.
On 17 November 1949 Jay minuted Cripps, arguing that trade liberalization on inessentials was socially regressive.
The Commander-in-Chief of Bomber Command, Sir Richard Peirse, was sceptical of its findings, minuting, ‘I don’t think at this rate we could have hoped to produce the damage which is known to have been achieved.’
Mr. Klingstadt, chief Auditor of the Admiralty of that city, sent for and examined them very particularly concerning the events which had befallen them; minuting down their answers in writing, with an intention of publishing himself an account of their extraordinary adventures.
The Empress of Russia, with her own hand, minuted an edict for universal tolerance.
Etimology
Borrowed from Latin minūtus (“small", "petty”), perfect passive participle of minuō (“make smaller”).
adjective
minute (comparative minuter, superlative minutest)
Very small.
Very careful and exact, giving small details.
Examples
Synonyms: infinitesimal, insignificant, minuscule, tiny, trace; see also Thesaurus:tiny
Antonyms: big, enormous, colossal, huge, significant, tremendous, vast
They found only minute quantities of chemical residue on his clothing.
Synonyms: exact, exacting, excruciating, precise, scrupulous; see also Thesaurus:meticulous
The lawyer gave the witness a minute examination.
The single-imaging optic of the mammalian eye offers some distinct visual advantages. Such lenses can take in photons from a wide range of angles, increasing light sensitivity. They also have high spatial resolution, resolving incoming images in minute detail.