All 50 Uses of
minute
in
David Copperfield
- I gave him minute directions for finding the residence of Mr. Barkis, carrier to Blunderstone and elsewhere; and, on this understanding, went out alone.
Chpt 19-21 (definition 1) *minute = detailed
- …full of minute cups and saucers, which I have some idea Mr. Barkis must have purchased to present to me when I was a child, and afterwards found himself unable to part with;
Chpt 31-33 (definition 2) *minute = small
- It was very hard, but I turned back, though with a heavy heart, and began laboriously and methodically to plod over the same tedious ground at a snail's pace; stopping to examine minutely every speck in the way, on all sides, and making the most desperate efforts to know these elusive characters by sight wherever I met them.
Chpt 37-39 (definition 1)minutely = carefully
Uses with a very common or rare meaning:
- Those allied powers were considerably astonished, when they arrived within a few minutes of each other, to find an unknown lady of portentous appearance, sitting before the fire, with her bonnet tied over her left arm, stopping her ears with jewellers' cotton.†
Chpt 1-3 (definition 3)
- During the five minutes or so that Mr. Chillip devoted to the delivery of this oration, my aunt eyed him narrowly.†
Chpt 1-3 (definition 3)
- 'You an't cross, I suppose, Peggotty, are you?' said I, after sitting quiet for a minute.†
Chpt 1-3 (definition 3)
- At this minute I see him turn round in the garden, and give us a last look with his ill-omened black eyes, before the door was shut.†
Chpt 1-3 (definition 3)
- Poor Peggotty lifted up her hands and eyes, and only answered, in a sort of paraphrase of the grace I usually repeated after dinner, 'Lord forgive you, Mrs. Copperfield, and for what you have said this minute, may you never be truly sorry!'†
Chpt 4-6 (definition 3)
- I sit with my eye on Mr. Creakle, blinking at him like a young owl; when sleep overpowers me for a minute, he still looms through my slumber, ruling those ciphering-books, until he softly comes behind me and wakes me to plainer perception of him, with a red ridge across my back.†
Chpt 7-9 (definition 3)
- 'If you think, Steerforth,' said Mr. Mell, 'that I am not acquainted with the power you can establish over any mind here' — he laid his hand, without considering what he did (as I supposed), upon my head — 'or that I have not observed you, within a few minutes, urging your juniors on to every sort of outrage against me, you are mistaken.'†
Chpt 7-9 (definition 3)
- He received me exactly as if not five minutes had elapsed since we were last together, and I had only been into the hotel to get change for sixpence, or something of that sort.†
Chpt 7-9 (definition 3)
- 'I have been acquainted with you,' said Mr. Omer, after watching me for some minutes, during which I had not made much impression on the breakfast, for the black things destroyed my appetite, 'I have been acquainted with you a long time, my young friend.'†
Chpt 7-9 (definition 3)
- 'She's at school, sir,' said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequent on the porterage of Peggotty's box from his forehead; 'she'll be home,' looking at the Dutch clock, 'in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour's time.†
Chpt 10-12 (definition 3)
- 'Young or old, Davy dear, as long as I am alive and have this house over my head,' said Peggotty, 'you shall find it as if I expected you here directly minute.†
Chpt 10-12 (definition 3)
- My timid station on his threshold was not occupied more than a couple of minutes at most; but I came down again with all this in my knowledge, as surely as the knife and fork were in my hand.†
Chpt 10-12 (definition 3)
- After which, he was grave for a minute or so.†
Chpt 10-12 (definition 3)
- It was gone in a minute.†
Chpt 10-12 (definition 3) *
- Now, I was unwilling to put the direction-card on there, lest any of my landlord's family should fathom what I was doing, and detain me; so I said to the young man that I would be glad if he would stop for a minute, when he came to the dead-wall of the King's Bench prison.†
Chpt 10-12 (definition 3)
- When she had administered these restoratives, as I was still quite hysterical, and unable to control my sobs, she put me on the sofa, with a shawl under my head, and the handkerchief from her own head under my feet, lest I should sully the cover; and then, sitting herself down behind the green fan or screen I have already mentioned, so that I could not see her face, ejaculated at intervals, 'Mercy on us!' letting those exclamations off like minute guns.†
Chpt 13-15 (definition 3)
- For I began to be sensible of acute pains in my limbs from lying out in the fields, and was now so tired and low that I could hardly keep myself awake for five minutes together.†
Chpt 13-15 (definition 3)
- But there were no other clothes in my room than the odd heap of things I wore; and when I was left there, with a little taper which my aunt forewarned me would burn exactly five minutes, I heard them lock my door on the outside.†
Chpt 13-15 (definition 3)
- On the next day, still bundled up in my curious habiliments, I sat counting the time, flushed and heated by the conflict of sinking hopes and rising fears within me; and waiting to be startled by the sight of the gloomy face, whose non-arrival startled me every minute.†
Chpt 13-15 (definition 3)
- Though his face was towards me, I thought, for some time, the writing being between us, that he could not see me; but looking that way more attentively, it made me uncomfortable to observe that, every now and then, his sleepless eyes would come below the writing, like two red suns, and stealthily stare at me for I dare say a whole minute at a time, during which his pen went, or pretended to go, as cleverly as ever.†
Chpt 13-15 (definition 3)
- All this ran in my head so much, on that first day at Doctor Strong's, that I felt distrustful of my slightest look and gesture; shrunk within myself whensoever I was approached by one of my new schoolfellows; and hurried off the minute school was over, afraid of committing myself in my response to any friendly notice or advance.†
Chpt 16-18 (definition 3)
- How many a summer hour have I known to be but blissful minutes to him in the cricket-field!†
Chpt 16-18 (definition 3)
- And Joram's at work, at this minute, on a grey one with silver nails, not this measurement' — the measurement of the dancing child upon the counter — 'by a good two inches.†
Chpt 19-21 (definition 3)
- At last, to make the matter easier, I went upstairs with her; and having waited outside for a minute, while she said a word of preparation to Mr. Barkis, presented myself before that invalid.†
Chpt 19-21 (definition 3)
- But his easy, spirited good humour; his genial manner, his handsome looks, his natural gift of adapting himself to whomsoever he pleased, and making direct, when he cared to do it, to the main point of interest in anybody's heart; bound her to him wholly in five minutes.†
Chpt 19-21 (definition 3)
- If anyone had told me, then, that all this was a brilliant game, played for the excitement of the moment, for the employment of high spirits, in the thoughtless love of superiority, in a mere wasteful careless course of winning what was worthless to him, and next minute thrown away — I say, if anyone had told me such a lie that night, I wonder in what manner of receiving it my indignation would have found a vent!†
Chpt 19-21 (definition 3)
- Would you be so good as look arter her, Mawther, for a minute?'†
Chpt 19-21 (definition 3)
- It took place this here present hour; and here's the man that'll marry her, the minute she's out of her time.'†
Chpt 19-21 (definition 3)
- But it depended upon Steerforth; and he did it with such address, that in a few minutes we were all as easy and as happy as it was possible to be.†
Chpt 19-21 (definition 3)
- Just half a minute, my young friend, and we'll give you a polishing that shall keep your curls on for the next ten years!'†
Chpt 22-24 (definition 3)
- I shook him warmly by the hand when he had put it away again — for that was more satisfactory to me than saying anything — and we walked up and down, for a minute or two, in silence.†
Chpt 22-24 (definition 3)
- 'Then come,' replied my aunt, immediately resuming the bonnet she had a minute before laid aside.†
Chpt 22-24 (definition 3)
- I laughed heartily at my own jokes, and everybody else's; called Steerforth to order for not passing the wine; made several engagements to go to Oxford; announced that I meant to have a dinner-party exactly like that, once a week, until further notice; and madly took so much snuff out of Grainger's box, that I was obliged to go into the pantry, and have a private fit of sneezing ten minutes long.†
Chpt 22-24 (definition 3)
- Although I left the office at half past three, and was prowling about the place of appointment within a few minutes afterwards, the appointed time was exceeded by a full quarter of an hour, according to the clock of St. Andrew's, Holborn, before I could muster up sufficient desperation to pull the private bell-handle let into the left-hand door-post of Mr. Waterbrook's house.†
Chpt 25-27 (definition 3)
- I asked him, with a better appearance of composure than I could have thought possible a minute before, whether he had made his feelings known to Agnes.†
Chpt 25-27 (definition 3)
- I hazarded a bold flight, and said (not without stammering) that it was very bright to me then, though it had been very dark to me a minute before.†
Chpt 25-27 (definition 3)
- I was fortunate enough, too, to become acquainted with a person in the publishing way, who was getting up an Encyclopaedia, and he set me to work; and, indeed' (glancing at his table), 'I am at work for him at this minute.†
Chpt 25-27 (definition 3)
- 'It's a bad job,' he said, when I had done; 'but the sun sets every day, and people die every minute, and we mustn't be scared by the common lot.†
Chpt 28-30 (definition 3)
- Whether it was because we had sat there so long, or because Steerforth was resolved not to lose the advantage he had gained, I do not know; but we did not remain in the dining-room more than five minutes after her departure.†
Chpt 28-30 (definition 3)
- A minute more, and this had roused me from my trance: — Steerforth had left his seat, and gone to her, and had put his arm laughingly about her, and had said, 'Come, Rosa, for the future we will love each other very much!'†
Chpt 28-30 (definition 3)
- Why, at the present minute, when I see the candle sparkle up, I says to myself, "She's a looking at it!†
Chpt 31-33 (definition 3)
- Mr. Peggotty took the light from the window, trimmed it, put it on the table, and was busily stirring the fire, when Ham, who had not moved, said: 'Mas'r Davy, will you come out a minute, and see what Em'ly and me has got to show you?'†
Chpt 31-33 (definition 3)
- He walked a little in front of us, and kept before us for some minutes.†
Chpt 31-33 (definition 3)
- Had I left the room a minute, when his man told me that "Young Innocence" (so he called you, and you may call him "Old Guilt" all the days of your life) had set his heart upon her, and she was giddy and liked him, but his master was resolved that no harm should come of it — more for your sake than for hers — and that that was their business here?†
Chpt 31-33 (definition 3)
- I ought to observe, however, in explanation of that lady's state of mind, that she was much offended by Peggotty's tucking up her widow's gown before she had been ten minutes in the place, and setting to work to dust my bedroom.†
Chpt 31-33 (definition 3)
- Miss Mills was conversational for a few minutes, and then, laying down her pen upon 'Affection's Dirge', got up, and left the room.†
Chpt 31-33 (definition 3)
- I had loved her every minute, day and night, since I first saw her.†
Chpt 31-33 (definition 3)
Definitions:
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(1) (minute as in: minute description) detailed (including even small considerations); and/or careful (done with care)
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(2) (minute as in: minute size) small, exceptionally small, or insignificant
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(3) (meaning too common or rare to warrant focus) Much more commonly, minute and minutes refer to a period of time lasting 60 seconds.
Less commonly, they refer to a measurement of angle where 60 minutes make up a single degree, and where a right angle has 90 degrees and a circle has 360 degrees.