minnie

See also: Minnie

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Etymology 1

A variant of minnow.

Noun

minnie (plural minnies)

1. Alternative spelling of minnow
   • 1879, R[ichard] J[efferies], chapter XIX, in Wild Life in a Southern County […], London: Smith, Elder, & Co., […], →OCLC, page 356:

     In quiet, sheltered places, where the water is clear but does not run too swiftly, the ‘minnie,’ as the stickleback is locally called, makes its nest by the bank. […] On these fibres the ova are deposited, and they are then either purposely partly covered with sand by the minnie, or else the particles that are brought down by the current gather over the bundle of fibres and conceal it, excepting one small spot.

Etymology 2

Noun

minnie (plural minnies)

1. (Northern England, informal, obsolete) Mother, mummy.

Etymology 3

Clipping of minenwerfer ‎ -ie.

Alternative forms

• Minnie

Noun

minnie (plural minnies)

1. (World War I military slang) A minenwerfer trench mortar.

References

• Lighter, Jonathan (1972) “The Slang of the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe, 1917-1919: An Historical Glossary”, in American Speech‎^[1], volume 47, number 1/2, page 79

Scots

Noun

minnie (plural minnies)

1. (informal) mother; mummy
   • 1874, Edward Bannerman Ramsay, Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character‎^[2]:

     One boy, on coming late, explained that the cause had been a regular pitched battle between his parents, with the details of which he amused his school-fellows; and he described the battle in vivid and Scottish Homeric terms: "And eh, as they faucht, and they faucht," adding, however, with much complacency, "but my minnie dang, she did tho'."

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1806, Walter Scott, Minstrelsy of the Scottish border (3rd ed) (1 of 3)‎^[3]:

     "There's naething left in the fair Dodhead, But a greeting wife and bairnies three, And sax poor ca's[134] stand in the sta', A' routing loud for their minnie."

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

   • 1780, Robert Burns, Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns‎^[4]:

     When first I gaed to woo my Jenny, Ye then was trotting wi' your minnie: Tho' ye was trickie, slee, an' funnie, Ye ne'er was donsie; But hamely, tawie, quiet, an' cannie, An' unco sonsie.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)