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minion

noun
/ˈmɪnjən/

Etymology

First use appears c. 1490, from Middle French mignon (“lover, royal favourite, darling”), from Old French mignon (“dainty, pleasing, gentle, kind”), from Frankish *minnju (“love, friendship, affection, memory”), from Proto-Germanic *minjō (“affectionate thought, care”), from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to think”). Doublet of mignon.

  1. derived from *men-✻ — “to think”
  2. derived from *minjō✻ — “affectionate thought, care”
  3. derived from *minnju✻ — “love, friendship, affection, memory”
  4. derived from mignon — “dainty, pleasing, gentle, kind”
  5. borrowed from mignon — “lover, royal favourite, darling”

Definitions

  1. A loyal servant of another, usually a more powerful being.

    • The archvillain deployed his minions to simultaneously rob every bank in the city.
    • In the past two years, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has located nearly 3,000 exoplanet candidates ranging from sub-Earth-sized minions to gas giants that dwarf our own Jupiter.

  2. A sycophantic follower.

  3. The size of type between nonpareil and brevier, standardized as 7-point.

  4. ›+ 4 more definitions

    1. A loved one

      A loved one; one highly esteemed and favoured.

      • God's disciple and his dearest minion
      • Is this the Athenian minion whom the world / Voiced so regardfully?

    2. An ancient form of ordnance with a calibre of about three inches.

      • Gun. My Cannons rung like Bells. Here's to my Mistress, The dainty sweet brass Minion: split their Fore-mast, She never fail'd.

    3. Obsolete form of minium.

      • Of philosophers and scholars priscae sapientiae dictatores, I have already spoken in general terms, those superintendents of wit and learning, men above men, those refined men, minions of the muses.

    4. Favoured, beloved

      Favoured, beloved; "pet".

      • These favours, with the commodities that follow minion Courtiers, corrupt[…]his libertie, and dazle his judgement.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

No curated loop yet for minion. Loops are being traced one word at a time while the ingestion pipeline matures.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA