minims

Noun

minim (plural minims)

1. A half note, drawn as a semibreve with a stem.
2. A unit of volume, in the Imperial and U.S. customary systems, ¹⁄₆₀ fluid drachm. Approximately equal to 1 drop, 62 μL or 0.9 grain (weight) of water.
   • He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of the red tincture and added one of the powders.1886, Robert Louis Stephenson, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde
3. A short vertical stroke used in handwriting.
4. Anything very minute; applied to animalcula and the like.
   • the minims of existence
5. The smallest kind of worker in a leaf-cutter ant colony.
6. A little man or being; a dwarf.
   • These as a line thir^([sic]) long dimension drew,
     Streaking the ground with sinuous trace;
     not all Minims of Nature; some of Serpent kinde
     Wondrous in length and corpulence […]1667, John Milton, “(please specify the page number)”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker...

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