mince
/mɪns/
mince noun: finely chopped meat; minced meat.
Noun
mince (countable and uncountable, plural minces)
- Finely chopped meat; minced meat.
- Mince tastes really good fried in a pan with some chopped onion and tomato.
- Finely chopped mixed fruit used in Christmas pies; mincemeat.
- During Christmas time my dad loves to eat mince pies.
- An affected (often dainty or short and precise) gait.
- 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.1949, Truman Capote, “Children on their Birthdays”, in A Tree of Night and Other Stories, page 36
- 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.1963, John Fowles, The Collector, page 15
- An affected manner, especially of speaking; an affectation.
- 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.1896, George Bernard Shaw, “Madame Sans-Gene”, in London Saturday Review
- 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?1928, R. M. Pope, The Education Outlook, volume 80, page 285
- An eye (from mince pie).
- 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.2009 May 21, planetdave, “Speed traps”, in PistonHeads, retrieved 22 Mar 2017
- Something worthless; rubbish.
- That band's new album is total mince.
Verb
mince (third-person singular simple present minces, present participle mincing, simple past and past participle minced)
- To make less; to make small.
- To lessen; to diminish; to diminish in speaking; to speak of lightly or slightingly; to minimise.
- To effect mincingly.
- To cut into very small pieces; to chop finely.
- Butchers often use machines to mince meat.
- To suppress or weaken the force of.
- Siren, now mince the sin, / And mollify damnation with a phrase.1681, John Dryden, The Spanish Fryar: Or, the Double Discovery. […], London: […] Richard Tonson and Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, (please specify the page number)
- To say or utter vaguely (not directly or frankly).
- to mince one's words
- a minced oath
- To affect; to pronounce affectedly or with an accent.
- 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.1869, Alexander J. Ellis, On Early English Pronunciation, with special reference to Shakespeare and Chaucer, part 1, page 194
- One may hear some speakers in Oxford mince brother into brover (brëvë); Bath into Baf; both into bof.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
- To walk with short steps; to walk in a prim, affected manner.
- 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.1943 November – 1944 February (date written; published 1945 August 17), George Orwell [pseudonym; Eric Arthur Blair], Animal Farm […], London: Secker & Warburg, published May 1962, →OCLC
- The daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, mincing as they go.1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC, Isaiah 3:16
- 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.
mince meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Urdu and Bengali
mince in Hindi
- to mince
- थिरकना thiraknā
mince in Tamil
- துண்டுதுண்டாக வெட்டு, விட்டுவிட்டுப்பேசு, கொத்திறைச்சி, கொத்துக்கறி
mince in Urdu
- بناوٹی انداز سے بولنا, پرزے پرزے کرنا, قیمہ کرنا
mince in Bengali
- to mince, chop
- থুড়া thuṛa
More languagesFewer languages
- mince in Malayalam
- കൊത്തി അരിയുക, ലഘുവാക്കുക, നുറുക്കുക
- mince in Kannada
- ಕೊತ್ತು, ಕೊಚ್ಚು, ಹಚ್ಚು, ಕತ್ತರಿಸು
- mince in Punjabi
- ਕ਼ੀਮਾ qīmā
- mince in Sinhala
- ලියනවා liyanawā
- mince in Arabic
- لَحْم مَفْرُوم laḥm mafrūm
- mince in Malay
- daging cincang
- mince in Indonesian
- daging cincang
- mince in Persian
- قیمه qeyme, خرد کردن xord-kardan
- mince in Thai
- สับ sàp
- mince in Vietnamese
- thịt băm, thịt vằm, băm, bằm
Examples of mince in a sentence
- 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.2010, Tom Zoellner, Uranium: War, Energy, and the Rock That Shaped the World:
- [...] a smiling man, portly and impressive, coming toward them with a dignified mince in his walk.2008, Opie Read, The Colossus, page 95:
- I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say — "I love you."1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life of Henry the Fift”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […]...
- In a statement to HNS, Tallis did not mince words.2017, BioWare, Mass Effect: Andromeda (Science Fiction), Redwood City: Electronic Arts, →OCLC, PC, scene: ELAADEN (HNS) - Nora Tallis Found...
Synonyms of mince
11 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of mince
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | minces |
| alternative form (dialectal) | minch |
| alternative form (obsolete) | minse |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | minces |
| present participle | mincing |
| past participle | minced |
| past | minced |
Origin of mince
From Middle English mincen, minsen; partly from Old English minsian, ġeminsian (“to make less, make smaller, diminish”), from Proto-West Germanic *minnisōn, 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 *mey- (“small, little”). Cognate with Old Saxon minsōn (“to make less, make smaller”), Old Dutch minson (“to make smaller”), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌽𐌶𐌽𐌰𐌽 (minznan, “to become less, diminish”), Swedish minska (“to reduce, lessen”), Gothic 𐌼𐌹𐌽𐍃 (mins, “slender, slight”). More at min.
Words formed from mince
Phrases with mince
Words that rhyme with mince
Questions about mince
- What does mince mean?
- Mince means finely chopped meat; minced meat.
- What is mince in Hindi?
- Mince in Hindi is थिरकना (thiraknā). See Mince meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use mince in a sentence?
- 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.
- What part of speech is mince?
- Mince can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce mince?
- Mince is pronounced /mɪns/ (UK).
- What is the plural of mince?
- The plural of mince is minces.
Words near mince in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: mince (page history and authors); थिरकना (Hindi) (page history and authors); mince (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mince (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); থুড়া (Bengali) (page history and authors); mince (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); mince (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ලියනවා (Sinhala) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-I learned some phrases-mince.wav.
Cite this entry: “mince.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/mince. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.