Word.ws English Dictionary

How to use minnow in a sentence

21 example sentences · noun, adjective, verb

Minnow means any of certain small fish. Example: “I wonder King George is let venture down on this coast, where he might be snapped up in a moment like a minnow by a her'n, so near as we be to the field of Boney's vagaries!”

Examples of minnow by meaning

nounAny of certain small fish.

  • I wonder King George is let venture down on this coast, where he might be snapped up in a moment like a minnow by a her'n, so near as we be to the field of Boney's vagaries!1904, Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts: A Drama of the Napoleonic Wars, […], part first, London: Macmillan and Co.: New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan...

nounThe common minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus), a small freshwater fish of the carp family Cyprinidae which has a green back...

  • Most minnows are small fish with cycloid scales, soft rays supporting their fins, and toothless jaws.2004, Robert G. Werner, “Carps and Minnows: Family Cyprinidae”, in Freshwater Fishes of the Northeastern United States: A Field Guide...

nounA person or thing of relatively little consequence, importance, or value.

  • But it remains a minnow compared with its Swedish predecessor, which employed 15,000 people and made $1.5bn in revenues during its last financial year in Russia.2023 December 23, Daria Mosolova, “Russian copycat start-ups rush to fill gaps left by exodus of western brands”, in FT Weekend (Companies...
  • Trump reserved his steepest rates not for America’s more economically advanced trading partners, but for economic minnows across Africa and Asia.2025 April 10, Ned Temko, “On tariffs, Trump moves forward, and back. What does it herald for trade?”, in The Christian Science Monitor

nounA team that is considered less skilled and not expected to win many, if any, of its matches.

  • Germany, once a great footballing nation, four-time world champion, has shrunk to a footballing minnow.2026 June 30, Kate Connolly, quoting Peter Ahrens, “Unhappy families: Matthäus claims Germany travel plans caused World Cup rift”, in The...

More sentences with minnow

  • It's highly unlikely you'll land a big fish before you've had nibbles from a few minnows.2010 March 13, Mariella Frostrup, “Dear Mariella”, in The Observer, London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the…. From the entry Ms Wrong
  • Just so, light beaded on tin lanterns, drops fanfared from sprinklers, minnows fluted in pools.2000, Veronica Patterson, Swan, what Shores?, →ISBN, page 11. From the entry fanfare
  • One of these was the large-scaled yellowfish, another the barred minnow, and also the small rock catlet.1978, Dale Kenmuir, A Wilderness Called Kariba: The Wildlife and Natural History of Lake Kariba, page 36. From the entry catlet
  • At Martinsville large common and quillback suckers, hogmollies, sunfish, and numerous minnows are found.1944, United States. Army. Corps of Engineers. Ohio River Division, Ohio River Pollution Control: Report (volume 3, page 1309). From the entry hogmolly
  • But before the minnow has a chance to answer, we're startled by a suckery sound from outside the cave.2015, Davy Ocean, Deep-Sea Treasury, page 342. From the entry suckery
  • They wanted to denounce the raids as a cruel misuse of crime-fighting resources — fishing for minnows instead of sharky predators.2009 March 19, Lawrence Downes, “Notes From the Immigration Battlefield”, in The New York Times. From the entry sharky
  • Salmon catch minnows, quick as a fly flash.1969, Madeleine L’Engle, “The Roc”, in Lines Scribbled on an Envelope and Other Poems, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, →LCCN…. From the entry spiderlet
  • Happily I flounder about, terrifying the minnows, and float on my back and spout cheekfuls of water at the sun.1968, Edward Abbey, “Down the River”, in Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, McGraw-Hill; republished New York: Touchstone…. From the entry cheekful
  • It was a game that many of those present had watched on loop throughout their lives: England in a Wembley qualifier against compact, 11‑men‑behind-the-ball minnows.2025 March 24, David Hytner, “Reece James bends it like Beckham to help England break down Latvia”, in The Guardian. From the entry on loop
  • To date, Daphnia and fish, particularly zebrafish and fathead minnow, appear to be the most common model organisms for ecotoxicogenomics studies employing DNA microarrays.2015 May 29, Hyo Jeong Kim et al., “Ecotoxicogenomic Approaches for Understanding Molecular Mechanisms of Environmental Chemical Toxicity…. From the entry ecotoxicogenomics
  • Scotland, so disappointing in defeat to Argentina a week ago, tryless against the comparative minnows of Georgia, carried all the menace and mobility.2011 October 1, Tom Fordyce, “Rugby World Cup 2011: England 16-12 Scotland”, in BBC Sport. From the entry tryless
  • It was a ship, but a whale to the Dark Nebula’s minnow; and on its side was the Spaceship-and-Sun of the Empire.1951, Isaac Asimov, ““The Merchant Princes”, chapter 17”, in Foundation, part V, Panther Books Ltd, published 1974, page 182. From the entry yammer
  • All the little minnows which were not caught for bait this spring may well give thanks to the women of the U.1939 May 1, “Fishermen Grumble At New Fashion Which Depletes Their Net Supply”, in Life, volume 6, number 18. From the entry fishnet
  • Blood-clotting platelets had surged like minnows to the site of injury, clumping together to form a thrombosis that blocked the artery, causing a heart attack and tissue death.2018, Sandeep Jauhar, Heart: a History, →ISBN, page 37. From the entry thrombosis
  • Chris used a spinning rod with a green-and-white bucktail jig while I cast a chartreuse Angel Hair and white-bucktail Clouser minnow with my 8-weight fly rod.2007 June 23, Norm Zeigler, “The Low-Profile Westport River Offers a High Yield of Fish”, in New York Times. From the entry bucktail
  • Looking out from within the hillside, the entrance frames the buttress of Nab Scar, and on the floor a minnowed pool draws reflections from the sunlit boulders outside.1976, Vera Burden, History, People, and Places in the Lake District, Bourne End, Buckinghamshire: Spurbooks Limited, →ISBN, page 90. From the entry minnowed

Meaning of minnow

  1. noun Any of certain small fish.
  2. noun The common minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus), a small freshwater fish of the carp family Cyprinidae which has a green back with black elongated blotches, commonly swimming in large shoals.
  3. noun Chiefly with a qualifying word: That fish or any of a number of other (small) fish from the family Cyprinidae.

Full definition of minnow

Questions about minnow in a sentence

How do you use minnow in a sentence?
Minnow is used as a noun, adjective and verb. For example: “I wonder King George is let venture down on this coast, where he might be snapped up in a moment like a minnow by a her'n, so near as we be to the field of Boney's vagaries!”
What is a short sentence with minnow?
“Salmon catch minnows, quick as a fly flash.”
What does minnow mean?
Minnow means any of certain small fish.

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: minnow (page history and authors) and the entries each sentence comes from. Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws chose the sentences, left out offensive ones and quotations older than 1900, and marked the word in each. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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