I. NOUN AND VERB USES
/mɪnɪt/
( minutes, minuting, minuted)
Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English.
1.
A minute is one of the sixty parts that an hour is divided into. People often say ‘ a minute ’ or ‘ minutes ’ when they mean a short length of time.
The pizza will then take about twenty minutes to cook...
Bye Mum, see you in a minute...
Within minutes we realized our mistake.
N-COUNT : oft num N
2.
The minutes of a meeting are the written records of the things that are discussed or decided at it.
He’d been reading the minutes of the last meeting.
N-PLURAL : oft N of n
3.
When someone minutes something that is discussed or decided at a meeting, they make a written record of it.
You don’t need to minute that.
VERB : V n
4.
see also up-to-the-minute
5.
People often use expressions such as wait a minute or just a minute when they want to stop you doing or saying something.
Wait a minute, folks, something is wrong here...
Hey, just a minute!
= hang on
CONVENTION
6.
If you say that something will or may happen at any minute or any minute now , you are emphasizing that it is likely to happen very soon.
It looked as though it might rain at any minute...
Any minute now, that phone is going to ring.
PHRASE [ emphasis ]
7.
If you say that you do not believe for a minute or for one minute that something is true, you are emphasizing that you do not believe that it is true.
I don’t believe for one minute she would have been scared...
= for a moment
PHRASE : with brd-neg , PHR with v [ emphasis ]
8.
A last-minute action is one that is done at the latest time possible.
She was doing some last-minute revision for her exams...
He will probably wait until the last minute.
PHRASE : PHR n , prep PHR
9.
You use the expression the next minute or expressions such as ‘ one minute he was there , the next he was gone’ to emphasize that something happens suddenly.
The next minute my father came in...
Jobs are there one minute, gone the next.
= the next moment
PHRASE [ emphasis ]
10.
If you say that something happens the minute something else happens, you are emphasizing that it happens immediately after the other thing.
The minute you do this, you’ll lose control...
PHRASE : PHR that [ emphasis ]
11.
If you say that something must be done this minute , you are emphasizing that it must be done immediately.
Anna, stop that. Sit down this minute.
= now, immediately
PHRASE [ emphasis ]
II. ADJECTIVE USE
/maɪnju:t, AM -nu:t-/
( minutest)
If you say that something is minute , you mean that it is very small.
Only a minute amount is needed...
The party was planned in the minutest detail.
= tiny
ADJ