All 29 Uses of
minute
in
The God of Small Things
- He could make intricate toys—tiny windmills, rattles, minute jewel boxes out of dried palm reeds; he could carve perfect boats out of tapioca stems and figurines on cashew nuts.
Chpt 2 (definition 1) *minute = small
- Comrade Pillai's mother, a minute old lady in a brown blouse and off-white mundu sat on the edge of the high wooden bed that was pushed against the wall, her feet dangling high above the floor.
Chpt 14 (definition 1)minute = little
- At the minute spider who lived in a crack in the wall of the back verandah of the History House and camouflaged himself by covering his body with bits of rubbish—a sliver of wasp wing.
Chpt 21 (definition 1)minute = small
Uses with a very common or rare meaning:
- Estha—Esthappen—was the older by eighteen minutes.†
Chpt 1 (definition 2)
- It puzzled everybody that an eighteen-minute age difference could cause such a discrepancy in front-tooth timing.†
Chpt 2 (definition 2)
- They emerged without much fuss, within eighteen minutes of each other.†
Chpt 2 (definition 2)
- It never flew for more than a minute.†
Chpt 2 (definition 2)
- That delayed them by another twenty minutes.†
Chpt 2 (definition 2)
- Within minutes there was no one on the road.†
Chpt 2 (definition 2)
- Within minutes, the road was swamped by thousands of marching people.†
Chpt 2 (definition 2)
- A three-minute run through the coconut trees for Esthappen and Rahel.†
Chpt 2 (definition 2)
- "Wait a minute!" the Orangedrink Lemondrink Man said sharply.†
Chpt 4 (definition 2)
- "Just a minute!" he said again, more gently, "I thought I asked you a question."†
Chpt 4 (definition 2)
- Six-hour classics were slashed to twenty-minute cameos.†
Chpt 5 (definition 2)
- He flipped through the pack of photographs (a pictorial guide to Lenin's Life-in-a-Minute) to the last one.†
Chpt 5 (definition 2)
- Minutes before that picture was taken, she had finished explaining patiently to Estha and Rahel (arguing away any evidence to the contrary, photographs, memories) how there was a pretty good chance that they were bastards, and what bastard really meant.†
Chpt 5 (definition 2)
- The crematorium "In-charge" had gone down the road for a cup of tea and didn't come back for twenty minutes.†
Chpt 7 (definition 2)
- It took ten minutes for her beloved gumboots to be completely shredded.†
Chpt 8 (definition 2)
- The Orangedrink Lemondrink Man could walk in any minute.†
Chpt 10 (definition 2)
- Cook for a few (5) minutes.†
Chpt 10 (definition 2) *
- He can fly you across whole worlds in minutes, he can stop for hours to examine a wilting leaf.†
Chpt 12 (definition 2)
- Dushasana full of bravado one minute.†
Chpt 12 (definition 2)
- He stood there for ten minutes waiting to be noticed.†
Chpt 13 (definition 2)
- At the last minute his courage failed him and he floated fatly by without looking in.†
Chpt 13 (definition 2)
- It took him only a few minutes to make the crossing.†
Chpt 15 (definition 2)
- It took them a few minutes to catch their breath and register the loss of the boat.†
Chpt 16 (definition 2)
- Please give me five minutes before you send them in.†
Chpt 19 (definition 2)
- If she had to endure another minute of Chacko's proud, tennis-trophy smile.†
Chpt 20 (definition 2)
- Then, for what seemed like an eternity, but was really no more than five minutes, she slept leaning against him, her back against his chest.†
Chpt 21 (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.