2. Attentive to small things; paying attention to details;
critical; particular; precise; as, a minute observer;
minute observation.
Syn: Little; diminutive; fine; critical; exact;
circumstantial; particular; detailed.
Usage: {Minute}, {Circumstantial}, {Particular}. A
circumstantial account embraces all the leading
events; a particular account includes each event and
movement, though of but little importance; a minute
account goes further still, and omits nothing as to
person, time, place, adjuncts, etc.
{Minute bell}, a bell tolled at intervals of a minute, as to
give notice of a death or a funeral.
{Minute book}, a book in which written minutes are entered.
{Minute glass}, a glass measuring a minute or minutes by the
running of sand.
{Minute gun}, a discharge of a cannon repeated every minute
as a sign of distress or mourning.
{Minute hand}, the long hand of a watch or clock, which makes
the circuit of the dial in an hour, and marks the minutes.
Four minutes, that is to say, minutes of an hour.
--Chaucer.
2. The sixtieth part of a degree; sixty seconds (Marked thus
('); as, 10[deg] 20').
3. A nautical or a geographic mile.
4. A coin; a half farthing. [Obs.] --Wyclif (Mark xii. 42)
5. A very small part of anything, or anything very small; a
jot; a tittle. [Obs.]
Minutes and circumstances of his passion. --Jer.
Taylor.
I go this minute to attend the king. --Dryden.
7. The memorandum; a record; a note to preserve the memory of
anything; as, to take minutes of a contract; to take
minutes of a conversation or debate.
8. (Arch.) A fixed part of a module. See {Module}.
Note: Different writers take as the minute one twelfth, one
eighteenth, one thirtieth, or one sixtieth part of the
module.
The Empress of Russia, with her own hand, minuted an
edict for universal tolerance. --Bancroft.