All 10 Uses of
minute
in
Walden
- There are many furrows in the sand where some creature has travelled about and doubled on its tracks; and, for wrecks, it is strewn with the cases of caddis-worms made of minute grains of white quartz.
Chpt 13 (definition 1) *minute = small
- There are also already within the ice narrow oblong perpendicular bubbles about half an inch long, sharp cones with the apex upward; or oftener, if the ice is quite fresh, minute spherical bubbles one directly above another, like a string of beads.
Chpt 13 (definition 1)
- I inferred that the infinite number of minute bubbles which I had first seen against the under surface of the ice were now frozen in likewise, and that each, in its degree, had operated like a burning-glass on the ice beneath to melt and rot it.
Chpt 13 (definition 1)
Uses with a very common or rare meaning:
- After all, the man whose horse trots a mile in a minute does not carry the most important messages; he is not an evangelist, nor does he come round eating locusts and wild honey.†
Chpt 1 (definition 2)
- Their train of clouds stretching far behind and rising higher and higher, going to heaven while the cars are going to Boston, conceals the sun for a minute and casts my distant field into the shade, a celestial train beside which the petty train of cars which hugs the earth is but the barb of the spear.†
Chpt 4 (definition 2)
- Men are advertised that at a certain hour and minute these bolts will be shot toward particular points of the compass; yet it interferes with no man's business, and the children go to school on the other track.†
Chpt 4 (definition 2)
- Warned by the whizzing sound, I look up from my book and see some tall pine, hewn on far northern hills, which has winged its way over the Green Mountains and the Connecticut, shot like an arrow through the township within ten minutes, and scarce another eye beholds it; going "to be the mast Of some great ammiral."†
Chpt 4 (definition 2)
- They would begin to sing almost with as much precision as a clock, within five minutes of a particular time, referred to the setting of the sun, every evening.†
Chpt 4 (definition 2)
- You may even tread on them, or have your eyes on them for a minute, without discovering them.†
Chpt 12 (definition 2) *
- So perfect is this instinct, that once, when I had laid them on the leaves again, and one accidentally fell on its side, it was found with the rest in exactly the same position ten minutes afterward.†
Chpt 12 (definition 2)
Definitions:
-
(1) (minute as in: minute size) small, exceptionally small, or insignificant
-
(2) (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.