mince

Alternative forms

• minse (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English mincen, minsen; partly from Old English minsian (“to make less, make smaller, diminish”), from Proto-Germanic *minnisōną (“to make less”); partly from Old French mincer, mincier (“to cut into small pieces”), from mince (“slender, slight, puny”), from Frankish *minsto, *minnisto, superlative of *min, *minn (“small, less”), from Proto-Germanic *minniz (“less”); both from Proto-Indo-European *(e)mey- (“small, little”). Cognate with Old Saxon minsōn (“to make less, make smaller”), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌽𐌶𐌽𐌰𐌽 (minznan, “to become less, diminish”), Swedish minska (“to reduce, lessen”), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌽𐍃 (mins, “slender, slight”). More at min.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɪns/
• Rhymes: -ɪns
• Homophone: mints

Noun

mince (countable and uncountable, plural minces)

1. (uncountable) Finely chopped meat.

   Mince tastes really good fried in a pan with some chopped onion and tomato.

2. (uncountable) Finely chopped mixed fruit used in Christmas pies; mincemeat.

   During Christmas time my dad loves to eat mince pies.

3. (countable) An affected (often dainty or short and precise) gait.
   • 1949, Truman Capote, “Children on their Birthdays”, in A Tree of Night and Other Stories‎, page 36:

     A wiry little girl in a starched, lemon-colored party dress, she sassed along with a grownup mince, one hand on her hip, the other supporting a spinsterish umbrella.

   • 1963, John Fowles, The Collector‎, page 15:

     She was just the same; she had a light way of walking and she always wore flat heels so she didn't have that mince like most girls.

   • 2010, Tom Zoellner, Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World:

     His skin was china pale, he walked with a slight mince, and his silver mustache was always trimmed sharp; it was his custom to send a bouquet of pink carnations to the wives of men with whom he dined.

4. (countable) An affected manner, especially of speaking; an affectation.
   • 1896, George Bernard Shaw, “Madame Sans-Gene”, in London Saturday Review:

     A very moderate degree of accomplishment in this direction would make an end of stage smart speech, which, like the got-up Oxford mince and drawl of a foolish curate, is the mark of a snob.

   • 1928, R. M. Pope, in The Education Outlook, volume 80, page 285:

     And, further, who has not heard what someone has christened the "Oxford" mince, where every consonant is mispronounced and every vowel gets a wrong value?

   • 2008, Opie Read, The Colossus, page 95:

     [...] a smiling man, portly and impressive, coming toward them with a dignified mince in his walk.

5. (countable, Cockney rhyming slang, chiefly plural) An eye (from mince pie).
   • 2009 May 21, planetdave, “Speed traps”, in PistonHeads‎, retrieved 2017-03-22:

     Lancashire is a bit nazi about speed and the M6 in that area can be either clear or infested with vans and their helicopter. On the good side the vans tend to be on well sighted bridges so just keep the old minces peeled.

Verb

mince (third-person singular simple present minces, present participle mincing, simple past and past participle minced)

1. (transitive) To make less; make small.
2. (transitive) To lessen; diminish; to diminish in speaking; speak of lightly or slightingly; minimise.
3. (transitive, rare) To effect mincingly.
4. (transitive, cooking) To cut into very small pieces; to chop fine.

   Butchers often use machines to mince meat.

5. (transitive) To suppress or weaken the force of; to extenuate; to palliate; to tell by degrees, instead of directly and frankly; to clip, as words or expressions; to utter half and keep back half of.

   I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say — "I love you." — Shakespeare

   To mince one's words

   a minced oath

   • Dryden

     Siren, now mince the sin, / And mollify damnation with a phrase.

6. (transitive) To affect; to pronounce affectedly or with an accent.
   • 1869, Alexander J. Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation, with special reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer, part 1, page 194:

     In some districts of England ll is sounded like w, thus bowd (booud) for BOLD, bw (buu) for BULL, caw (kau) for CALL. But this pronunciation is merely a provincialism, and not to be imitated unless you wish to mince like these blunderers.

   • 1905, George Henderson, The Gaelic Dialects, IV, in the Zeitschrift für celtische Philologie, published by Kuno Meyer and L. Chr. Stern, volume 5, page 98:

     One may hear some speakers in Oxford mince brother into brover (brëvë); Bath into Baf; both into bof.

   • 1915, Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark:

     "The preacher said it was sympathetic," she minced the word, remembering Mr. Larsen's manner.

7. (intransitive) To walk with short steps; to walk in a prim, affected manner.
   • The daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, mincing as they go. — Isaiah 3:16
   • I'll turn two mincing steps into a manly stride. — Shakespeare
   • 1945 August 17, George Orwell, chapter 1, in Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, London: Secker & Warburg, OCLC 3655473:

     At the last moment Mollie, the foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones's trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing at a lump of sugar.

8. (intransitive) To act or talk with affected nicety; to affect delicacy in manner.

   I love going to gay bars and seeing drag queens mince around on stage.

9. (archaic) To diminish the force of.

References

• mince in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913

Etymology

Borrowed from German Münze.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈmɪnt͡sɛ/
• Rhymes: -ɪntsɛ

Noun

mince f

1. coin

   hodit si mincí ― flip a coin

Further reading

• mince in Příruční slovník jazyka českého, 1935–1957
• mince in Slovník spisovného jazyka českého, 1960–1971, 1989

Etymology

Derived from the verb mincer, from Old French mincier, from Vulgar Latin *minūtiāre (cf. also menuiser), from Latin minūtia.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /mɛ̃s/

• audio

  (file)

Adjective

mince (plural minces)

1. thin, slim, slender

Interjection

mince

1. drat!, darn!
2. wow!, blimey!

Further reading

• “mince” in le Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Noun

mince f

1. genitive singular of minc (“mink”)

Mutation