petite
/pəˈtiːt/
petite adjective: fairly short and of slim build.
Adjective
petite (comparative more petite, superlative most petite)
- Fairly short and of slim build.
- Of small size; intended for small-framed adult women.
- Small, little; insignificant; petty.
- The Earth, the Sun, and Stars, what things are they in nature? are they petite things not worth our notice, or grand and worthy of consideration?1662, Galileo Galilei, translated by Thomas Salisbury, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems
Noun
petite (plural petites)
- A mutant first discovered in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, forming small colonies when grown in the presence of fermentable carbon sources such as glucose.
- The primary structure of the mitochondrial genomes of these petites had been previously determined […]2005, Giorgio Bernardi, Structural and Evolutionary Genomics, page 39
Proper noun capitalized: Petite
Petite (plural Petites)
- A surname.
petite meaning in Bengali, Malayalam and Kannada
petite in Bengali
- পেতিতে
petite in Malayalam
- diminutive, small, dainty
- ഒതുങ്ങിയ, ചെറിയ, സരൂ, ഒതുക്കവും വൃത്തിയുമുള്ള, നേർത്ത, ലളിതം
petite in Kannada
- ಪುಟ್ಟ, ಚೆಲುವೆಯಾದ
Examples of petite in a sentence
- Her bouffant suit made her seem much heavier than her petite figure actually was.
- Suddenly it all came back to him, the tea, the petite madeleines, his mother.
- I later found out that the cab stuffer preferred petite, ninety-pound, racktacular women, which wasn't me.
Forms of petite
| Adjective | |
|---|---|
| comparative | more petite |
| superlative | most petite |
| Noun | |
| plural | petites |
| Proper noun | |
| plural | Petites |
Origin of petite
Borrowed from French petite f, feminine of petit m (“small, little”).
Words formed from petite
Phrases with petite
Words that rhyme with petite
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- entreat
- fleet
- retreat
- treat
- complete
- conceit
- repeat
- concrete
- discrete
- bittersweet
- suite
- cheat
- cleat
- deceit
- greet
- unseat
- compete
- defeat
- delete
- effete
- elite
- escheat
- indiscrete
- leet
- pleat
- skeet
- sleet
- accrete
- beet
- bleat
- gleet
- ifrit
- incomplete
- overeat
- overheat
- replete
- superheat
- teat
- tweet
- wheat
- yeet
- Bereshit
- Bow Street
- Crete
- discreet
- downbeat
- jeet
- keet
Questions about petite
- What does petite mean?
- Petite means fairly short and of slim build.
- What is petite in Bengali?
- Petite in Bengali is পেতিতে. See Petite meaning in Bengali.
- What part of speech is petite?
- Petite can be an adjective, a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce petite?
- Petite is pronounced /pəˈtiːt/.
Words near petite in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: petite (page history and authors); Petite (page history and authors); petite (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); petite (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license); petite (Kannada Wiktionary) (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.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-petite.wav.
Cite this entry: “petite.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/petite. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.