📖 M — The English dictionary · page 33

minor — Everyday, meaning 1: Small or not very important; not serious: «a minor injury».↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (noun) In law, a person who is not yet an adult (under 18 in many countries).↗ Everyday, meaning 3: In music, a minor key or chord often sounds sad.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: (US) A second subject studied at university.↗ Example: It was only a minor cut, so Mum put on a plaster.↗ · There was a minor accident in the car park.↗ · The shop cannot sell knives to minors.↗ · This song is in a minor key and sounds sad.↗ · The dog is a minor character in the book.↗ · We had a minor problem with the projector.↗ · Most bumps in the playground are minor.↗ · Minor punctuation errors (omitted or incorrect punctuation, mismatched quote marks etc.) have been amended without note.↗

minority — Everyday, meaning 1: A minority is the smaller number or part of a group, less than half.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A minority (group) is a group of people who are different in race, religion, language or culture from most people in a country.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (law) The time when a person is still a child in law (under eighteen in most places).↗ Example: Only a minority of the class wanted to stay inside.↗ · People who like broccoli are in the minority here.↗ · Welsh is a minority language in the UK.↗ · The law protects religious minorities.↗ · A small minority of fans behaved badly.↗ · If 12 out of 30 children chose red, red was the choice of a minority.↗ · The party formed a minority government.↗

minotaur — Everyday, meaning 1: (a name) The Minotaur is a monster in Greek myths with the body of a man and the head of a bull.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: It lived in a maze called the Labyrinth on the island of Crete, and the hero Theseus killed it with help from Ariadne's thread.↗ Example: Theseus fought the Minotaur in the Labyrinth.↗ · The Minotaur had a bull's head and a man's body.↗ · Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of thread to find his way out.↗ · King Minos kept the Minotaur on Crete.↗ · We drew a maze with the Minotaur in the middle.↗ · The Minotaur is a myth, not a real animal.↗ · In the story, young people were sent to the Minotaur.↗ · Our class acted out Theseus and the Minotaur.↗ · If morning finds thee here, my father will avenge the Minotaur."↗

minstrel — Everyday, meaning 1: A minstrel was, long ago, a singer or musician who travelled from place to place singing songs and telling tales.↗ Example: The minstrel played his harp in the great hall.↗ · A minstrel sang of brave knights and dragons.↗ · The children gathered to hear the minstrel.↗ · The singers go before, the minstrels follow after, in the midst of damsels playing upon timbrels.↗ (Writings PSA.68.26, JPS 1917)↗ · But now bring me a minstrel.'↗ And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the LORD came upon him.↗ (Prophets 2KI.3.15, JPS 1917)↗

mint — Everyday, meaning 1: Mint is a plant with a fresh, strong-tasting leaf used in cooking and in toothpaste.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A mint is a sweet tasting of mint.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A mint is a place where a country makes its coins.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: To mint coins is to make them.↗ Everyday, meaning 5: In mint condition means looking brand new.↗ Example: We grow mint in the garden.↗ · Would you like a mint?↗ · Coins are made at the mint.↗ · The new coins were minted this year.↗ · My comic is in mint condition.↗ · Mint toothpaste makes your mouth feel fresh.↗ · Lamb is often served with mint sauce.↗ · That house must have cost a mint.↗ · The overseer of the mint struck coins for me.↗

minty — Everyday, meaning 1: Tasting or smelling of mint, the plant used in sweets, toothpaste and gum.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (informal, UK slang, older) In perfect condition, like new (that bike is minty).↗ Everyday, meaning 3: (UK slang, older) Angry or annoyed.↗ Example: This toothpaste is very minty.↗ · My breath smells minty after brushing.↗ · The tea had a fresh, minty taste.↗ · Do you want a minty sweet?↗ · The garden smells minty after rain.↗ · Those trainers are minty — like brand new!↗ (slang)↗

minus — Everyday, meaning 1: Minus means take away.↗ 7 minus 3 is 4.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: The sign for minus is −.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Minus before a number means below zero: minus 5 degrees.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: A minus is a bad point, a disadvantage: «pluses and minuses».↗ Everyday, meaning 5: After a grade, minus means a bit lower.↗ e.g. B minus.↗ Example: What is 10 minus 4?↗ · 15 minus 6 equals 9.↗ · The temperature was minus 3 degrees.↗ · Twenty minus eight is twelve.↗ · Write a minus sign between the numbers.↗ · I got a B minus on my spelling test.↗ · One minus of the trip is the long drive.↗ · Count down: 3, 2, 1, 0, minus 1.↗

minute — Everyday, meaning 1: A minute is a short length of time; sixty minutes make an hour.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A minute can mean a very short time: «Wait a minute».↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Said differently, minute means very, very small.↗ Example: An hour has 60 minutes.↗ · Tom walks for 15 minutes each day.↗ · The bus comes in 20 minutes.↗ · A minute has 60 seconds.↗ · Wait a minute, I'm nearly ready!↗ · Boil the egg for 5 minutes.↗ · We finished the project at the last minute.↗ · The minute hand points to 6 at half past.↗ · “Wait a minute!” called the Scarecrow.↗ · C. to denote the absence of degrees, minutes, or seconds in their sexagesi- mal notation.↗ (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914))↗

minx — Everyday, meaning 1: A minx is a cheeky, sly girl who teases or behaves in a pert way; an old-fashioned name for a saucy girl.↗ Example: "Oh, you little minx!" said Gran, laughing.↗ · The minx hid the sweets behind her back.↗ · The idle minx would not help with the dishes.↗

miracle — Everyday, meaning 1: A wonderful event that seems impossible and that some people believe is done by God.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A very lucky or surprising event (it's a miracle nobody was hurt).↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Something amazing (a miracle of modern science).↗ Example: It was a miracle that nobody was hurt in the crash.↗ · The story tells of a miracle in which water turned into wine.↗ · The new medicine worked like a miracle.↗ · It'll be a miracle if my room is tidy by tonight!↗ · Teachers can work miracles with tired children.↗ · The cat's survival after the fall was a small miracle.↗ · Is she not a miracle of beauty and grace?↗ · The principle of position is the "miracle" that makes one, many and many, one.↗ (Mordell, The Origin of Letters and Numerals according to Sefer Yetzirah (1914))↗

miraculous — Everyday, meaning 1: Like a miracle; amazing and hard to explain: a miraculous escape.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (religion) Done by a miracle, through the power of God.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: Very good or surprising in its effect: a miraculous cure.↗ Example: It was miraculous that the cat survived the fall.↗ · The team made a miraculous comeback.↗ · The boat had a miraculous escape from the storm.↗ · Her recovery was miraculous.↗ · The cream did not have miraculous powers after all.↗ · The garden made a miraculous change after the rain.↗ · In the story, a miraculous light filled the cave.↗ · A miraculous cure is effected by a supernatural being.↗ · It tends to be used of things that are marvelous, miraculous, or otherwise supernatural and extraordinary, i.e. that which defies the human ability to do or understand and must therefore be divine, e.g. [Deuteronomy 28:59], [Psalm 118:23], [Psalm 139:6].↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Sefaria community translation)↗

miraculously — Everyday, meaning 1: In a way that seems like a miracle; so surprisingly lucky or wonderful that it cannot easily be explained.↗ Example: The lost dog miraculously found its way home.↗ · Miraculously, nobody was hurt in the crash.↗ · The empty basket was miraculously full of bread the next morning.↗

mirage — Everyday, meaning 1: A mirage is something you seem to see that is not really there, caused by hot air bending light, like a pool of water on a hot road or in a desert.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: A mirage is a hope or idea that seems real but is not.↗ Example: On the hot road ahead, we saw a mirage that looked like water.↗ · The thirsty explorer saw a mirage of an oasis.↗ · A mirage is caused by light bending in hot air.↗ · As we got closer, the mirage disappeared.↗ · Sailors sometimes see ships floating in the sky — a kind of mirage.↗ · His hope of winning turned out to be a mirage.↗ · Mirages are common in deserts.↗ · You can photograph a mirage — it's not just in your head.↗

mire — Everyday, meaning 1: Mire is deep, wet mud or soft ground that sucks at your feet.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: To mire is to get stuck in mud, or to be held back in trouble.↗ Example: The cart sank deep in the mire.↗ · Our boots were thick with mire after the rain.↗ · The horse was stuck fast in the mire.↗ · Can the rush shoot up without mire?↗ (Writings JOB.8.11, JPS 1917)↗ · Sharpest potsherds are under him; he spreadeth a threshing-sledge upon the mire.↗ (Writings JOB.41.22, JPS 1917)↗ · He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes.↗ (Writings JOB.30.19, JPS 1917)↗

mirror — Everyday, meaning 1: A mirror is a piece of special glass with a shiny back in which you can see yourself and things behind you.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: To mirror something is to copy it exactly or show it like a reflection.↗ Everyday, meaning 3: A mirror image is a reflection where left and right are swapped.↗ Everyday, meaning 4: In fairy tales, a magic mirror can talk and answer questions.↗ Example: She looked at herself in the mirror.↗ · A mirror reflects light.↗ · Draw the mirror image of the shape.↗ · The mirror line cuts the butterfly into two equal halves.↗ · Check the mirror before you change lanes.↗ · Her face mirrored her mother's.↗ · Writing looks back to front in a mirror.↗ · and the mirror answered as before:↗ · And he made the laver of brass, and the base thereof of brass, of the mirrors of the serving women that did service at the door of the tent of meeting.↗ (Torah EXO.38.8, JPS 1917)↗ · Canst thou with Him spread out the sky, which is strong as a molten mirror?↗ (Writings JOB.37.18, JPS 1917)↗

mirth — Everyday, meaning 1: Laughter, fun and great happiness, especially among a group of people.↗ Example: The clown's tricks filled the room with mirth.↗ · The children shook with mirth at Dad's joke.↗ · There was much mirth and merriment at the feast.↗ · His face was red with mirth.↗ · The field-mice sang carols, and there was great mirth at Mole End.↗ · Her mirth turned to tears when the puppy ran away.↗ · But now no merry song or noise of mirth was heard from it.↗ · Wherefore didst thou flee secretly, and outwit me; and didst not tell me, that I might have sent thee away with mirth and with songs, with tabret and with harp; (Torah GEN.31.27, JPS 1917)↗ · He produced Quoph, predominant in Mirth, crowned, combined, and formed Pisces in the world, Adar in the year, and the spleen in man.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Westcott 1887)↗ · He produced Qoph, predominant in Mirth, crowned it, combined and formed with it Pisces in the Universe, Adar in the Year, and the spleen of Man.↗ (Sefer Yetzirah, Westcott 1893)↗ · Even in laughter the heart acheth; and the end of mirth is heaviness.↗ (Writings PRO.14.13, JPS 1917)↗ · I said of laughter: 'It is mad'; and of mirth: 'What doth it accomplish?'↗ (Writings ECC.2.2, JPS 1917)↗ · The mirth of tabrets ceaseth, the noise of them that rejoice endeth, the joy of the harp ceaseth.↗ (Prophets ISA.24.8, JPS 1917)↗

miry — Everyday, meaning 1: (literary) Very muddy and boggy; full of mire (deep, sticky mud).↗ Example: The cart got stuck on the miry road.↗ · We squelched through the miry field.↗ · The psalm says God lifted him out of the miry clay.↗ · The miry lane was hard to walk in after the rain.↗ · The horses struggled through the miry ground.↗ · Toad's car splashed through a miry puddle.↗ · A Farmer was driving his wagon along a miry country road after a heavy rain.↗ · But the miry places thereof, and the marshes thereof, shall not be healed; they shall be given for salt.↗ (Prophets EZK.47.11, JPS 1917)↗ · He brought me up also out of the tumultuous pit, out of the miry clay; and He set my feet upon a rock, He established my goings.↗ (Writings PSA.40.3, JPS 1917)↗ · And whereas thou sawest the iron mixed with miry clay, they shall mingle themselves by the seed of men; but they shall not cleave one to another, even as iron doth not mingle with clay.↗ (Writings DAN.2.43, JPS 1917)↗

misadventure — Everyday, meaning 1: A bit of bad luck or an unlucky accident, often a small one.↗ Everyday, meaning 2: (law, UK) «Death by misadventure» means a death caused by an accident during a risky but legal activity.↗ Example: The book tells of Toad's many misadventures.↗ · After a few misadventures, we finally found the campsite.↗ · Getting lost in the woods was quite a misadventure.↗ · The holiday was full of small misadventures.↗ · (law, UK) The coroner said the death was by misadventure.↗ · Alice's misadventures in Wonderland kept going wrong.↗ · The Prince told him all about his misadventure, and the condition on which the Emperor had promised to spare his life.↗

misapprehend — Everyday, meaning 1: (formal) To understand something wrongly; to misunderstand.↗ Example: He misapprehended the question and answered the wrong thing.↗ · I think you have misapprehended what I meant.↗ · The detective misapprehended the clue at first.↗ · Do not misapprehend the instructions: read them twice.↗ · She was under the misapprehension that the trip was on Friday.↗ · The king misapprehended the messenger's words and grew angry.↗ · It is easy to misapprehend a joke in a text message.↗ · They misapprehended the map and took the wrong path.↗