All 50 Uses of
minute
in
Les Miserables
- Mademoiselle Baptistine has so often narrated what passed at the episcopal residence that evening, that there are many people now living who still recall the most minute details.
Chpt 1.2 (definition 1)minute = small
- Now, in order to convey an idea of what passed at that table, we cannot do better than to transcribe here a passage from one of Mademoiselle Baptistine's letters to Madame Boischevron, wherein the conversation between the convict and the Bishop is described with ingenious minuteness.
Chpt 1.2 (definition 2) *minuteness = detail
- Then my brother, while urging the man to eat, explained to him, with great minuteness, what these fruitieres of Pontarlier were; that they were divided into two classes: the big barns which belong to the rich, and where there are forty or fifty cows which produce from seven to eight thousand cheeses each summer, and the associated fruitieres, which belong to the poor; these are the peasants of mid-mountain, who hold their cows in common, and share the proceeds.
Chpt 1.2 (definition 2)minuteness = attention to detail
- The incidents the reader is about to peruse were not all known at M. sur M. But the small portion of them which became known left such a memory in that town that a serious gap would exist in this book if we did not narrate them in their most minute details.
Chpt 1.7 (definition 1)minute = small
- They conferred "as to the necessity of seizing the person of M. le Maire of M. sur M." This phrase, in which there was a great deal of of, is the district-attorney's, written with his own hand, on the minutes of his report to the attorney-general.
Chpt 1.8 (definition 3) *minutes = formal notes
- We are going to learn the most minute details; we are going to lay our finger on the debaucheries of our sly friend!
Chpt 3.3 (definition 1)minute = small
- He was acquainted with all the minute details of the great affair.
Chpt 3.4 (definition 1) *
- …that as it turns everything to success, it admits of ruse and does not absolutely repudiate baseness, but which has this valuable side, that it preserves politics from violent shocks, the state from fractures, and society from catastrophes; minute, correct, vigilant, attentive, sagacious, indefatigable; contradicting himself at times and giving himself the lie; bold against Austria at Ancona, obstinate against England in Spain, bombarding Antwerp, and paying off Pritchard; singing the…
Chpt 4.1 (definition 2)minute = with careful attention to detail
- To talk at great length with very minute details, of persons in whom they took not the slightest interest in the world; another proof that in that ravishing opera called love, the libretto counts for almost nothing; For Marius, to listen to Cosette discussing finery; For Cosette, to listen to Marius talk in politics; To listen, knee pressed to knee, to the carriages rolling along the Rue de Babylone; To gaze upon the same planet in space, or at the same glowworm gleaming in the grass;…
Chpt 4.8 (definition 1)minute = small
Uses with a very common or rare meaning:
- A few minutes later all were asleep in the little house.†
Chpt 1.2 (definition 4)
- What an ominous minute is that in which society draws back and consummates the irreparable abandonment of a sentient being!†
Chpt 1.2 (definition 4)
- Several minutes elapsed.†
Chpt 1.2 (definition 4)
- At the expiration of a few minutes his left arm rose slowly towards his brow, and he took off his cap; then his arm fell back with the same deliberation, and Jean Valjean fell to meditating once more, his cap in his left hand, his club in his right hand, his hair bristling all over his savage head.†
Chpt 1.2 (definition 4)
- Children become acquainted quickly at that age, and at the expiration of a minute the little Thenardiers were playing with the new-comer at making holes in the ground, which was an immense pleasure.†
Chpt 1.4 (definition 4)
- It was also whispered about that he had "immense" sums deposited with Laffitte, with this peculiar feature, that they were always at his immediate disposal, so that, it was added, M. Madeleine could make his appearance at Laffitte's any morning, sign a receipt, and carry off his two or three millions in ten minutes.†
Chpt 1.5 (definition 4)
- It was evident that his ribs would be broken in five minutes more.†
Chpt 1.5 (definition 4)
- Only half a minute, and the poor man can be taken out.†
Chpt 1.5 (definition 4)
- The woman, a melancholy, decorated spectre which went and came through the snow, made him no reply, did not even glance at him, and nevertheless continued her promenade in silence, and with a sombre regularity, which brought her every five minutes within reach of this sarcasm, like the condemned soldier who returns under the rods.†
Chpt 1.5 (definition 4)
- The mayor had been gone two or three minutes when the door opened again; it was the mayor once more.†
Chpt 1.7 (definition 4)
- A minute more, and they were both in the fire.†
Chpt 1.7 (definition 4)
- After the lapse of a few minutes he no longer knew his position.†
Chpt 1.7 (definition 4)
- After listening for a few minutes, a young lad, to whom no one had paid any heed, detached himself from the group and ran off.†
Chpt 1.7 (definition 4)
- This caused another loss of twenty minutes; but they set out again at a gallop.†
Chpt 1.7 (definition 4)
- In the course of twenty minutes, she asked the nun more than ten times, "What time is it, sister?"†
Chpt 1.7 (definition 4)
- The girl returned in a few minutes.†
Chpt 1.7 (definition 4)
- He conformed to the bourgeois's directions, and a few minutes later he was in a hall containing many people, and where groups, intermingled with lawyers in their gowns, were whispering together here and there.†
Chpt 1.7 (definition 4)
- A few minutes later he found himself alone in a sort of wainscoted cabinet of severe aspect, lighted by two wax candles, placed upon a table with a green cloth.†
Chpt 1.7 (definition 4)
- Thence the lawyer had drawn some epiphonemas, not very fresh, unfortunately, upon judicial errors, etc., etc.; the President, in his summing up, had joined the counsel for the defence, and in a few minutes the jury had thrown Champmathieu out of the case.†
Chpt 1.8 (definition 4)
- Thus he remained for nearly a minute, without his presence being perceived.†
Chpt 1.8 (definition 4)
- When the first cannon was fired, the English general, Colville, looked at his watch, and noted that it was thirty-five minutes past eleven.†
Chpt 2.1 (definition 4)
- The immobility of a mathematical plan expresses a minute, not a day.†
Chpt 2.1 (definition 4)
- That volley of grape-shot can be seen to-day imprinted on the ancient gable of a brick building on the right of the road at a few minutes' distance before you enter Genappe.†
Chpt 2.1 (definition 4)
- …to feel in one's breast lungs which breathe, a heart which beats, a will which reasons; to speak, think, hope, love; to have a mother, to have a wife, to have children; to have the light—and all at once, in the space of a shout, in less than a minute, to sink into an abyss; to fall, to roll, to crush, to be crushed; to see ears of wheat, flowers, leaves, branches; not to be able to catch hold of anything; to feel one's sword useless, men beneath one, horses on top of one; to struggle…†
Chpt 2.1 (definition 4)
- However, it was only after the expiration of seven or eight minutes that the idea of following that "person" had occurred to him.†
Chpt 2.2 (definition 4)
- All were awaiting the minute when he should release his hold on the rope, and, from instant to instant, heads were turned aside that his fall might not be seen.†
Chpt 2.2 (definition 4)
- It was high time; one minute more, and the exhausted and despairing man would have allowed himself to fall into the abyss.†
Chpt 2.2 (definition 4)
- While the husband pondered and combined, Madame Thenardier thought not of absent creditors, took no heed of yesterday nor of to-morrow, and lived in a fit of anger, all in a minute.†
Chpt 2.3 (definition 4)
- She counted the minutes that passed in this manner, and wished it were the next morning.†
Chpt 2.3 (definition 4)
- It was only seven or eight minutes' walk from the edge of the woods to the spring.†
Chpt 2.3 (definition 4)
- When the coach set out for Lagny a few minutes later, it did not encounter him in the principal street of Chelles.†
Chpt 2.3 (definition 4)
- Several minutes elapsed.†
Chpt 2.3 (definition 4)
- She dared not touch it, but she spent five minutes in gazing at it, with her tongue hanging out, if the truth must be told.†
Chpt 2.3 (definition 4)
- Several minutes elapsed thus, and the light retreated.†
Chpt 2.4 (definition 4)
- In point of fact, three minutes had not elapsed when the men made their appearance.†
Chpt 2.5 (definition 4)
- A few minutes only separated Jean Valjean from that terrible precipice which yawned before him for the third time.†
Chpt 2.5 (definition 4)
- Half a minute had not elapsed when he was resting on his knees on the wall.†
Chpt 2.5 (definition 4)
- Fauchelevent took in his aged, trembling, and wrinkled hands Jean Valjean's two robust hands, and stood for several minutes as though incapable of speaking.†
Chpt 2.5 (definition 4)
- The first minutes passed; when one's eyes began to grow used to this cellar-like half-twilight, one tried to pass the grating, but got no further than six inches beyond it.†
Chpt 2.6 (definition 4)
- Moreover, at this minute which we are now traversing,—a minute which will not, fortunately, leave its impress on the nineteenth century,— at this hour, when so many men have low brows and souls but little elevated, among so many mortals whose morality consists in enjoyment, and who are busied with the brief and misshapen things of matter, whoever exiles himself seems worthy of veneration to us.†
Chpt 2.7 (definition 4)
- Moreover, at this minute which we are now traversing,—a minute which will not, fortunately, leave its impress on the nineteenth century,— at this hour, when so many men have low brows and souls but little elevated, among so many mortals whose morality consists in enjoyment, and who are busied with the brief and misshapen things of matter, whoever exiles himself seems worthy of veneration to us.†
Chpt 2.7 (definition 4)
Definitions:
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(1) (minute as in: minute size) small, exceptionally small, or insignificant
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(2) (minute as in: minute description) detailed (including even small considerations); and/or careful (done with care)
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(3) (minutes as in: keep the minutes) a written record of what happened at a meeting
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(4) (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.