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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Little \Lit"tle\ (l[i^]t"t'l), adjective [The regular comparative and superlative of this word, littler and littlest, are often used as comparatives of the sense small; but in the sense few, less, or, rarely, lesser is the proper comparative and least is the superlative. See {Lesser}. The regular form, littlest, occurs also in some of the English provinces, and occasionally in colloquial language. '' Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear.'' --Shak.] [OE. litel, lutel, AS. l[=y]tel, l[=i]tel, l[=y]t; akin to OS. littil, D. luttel, LG. l["u]tt, OHG. luzzil, MHG. l["u]tzel; and perh. to AS. lytig deceitful, lot deceit, Goth. liuts deceitful, lut[=o]n to deceive; cf. also Icel. l[=i]till little, Sw. liten, Dan. liden, lille, Goth. leitils, which appear to have a different root vowel.]
1. Small in size or extent; not big; diminutive; -- opposed to {big} or {large}; as, a little body; a little animal; a little piece of ground; a little hill; a little distance; a little child.
He sought to see Jesus who he was; and could not for the press, because he was little of stature. --Luke xix. 3.
2. Short in duration; brief; as, a little sleep.
Best him enough: after a little time, I'll beat him too. --Shak.
3. Small in quantity or amount; not much; as, a little food; a little air or water.
Conceited of their little wisdoms, and doting upon their own fancies. --Barrow.
4. Small in dignity, power, or importance; not great; insignificant; contemptible.
When thou wast little in thine own sight, wast thou not made the head of the tribes? --I Sam. xv. 17.
5. Small in force or efficiency; not strong; weak; slight; inconsiderable; as, little attention or exertion;little effort; little care or diligence.
By sad experiment I know How little weight my words with thee can find. --Milton.
6. Small in extent of views or sympathies; narrow; shallow; contracted; mean; illiberal; ungenerous.
The long-necked geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise, Because their natures are little. --Tennyson.
{Little chief}. (Zo["o]l.) See {Chief hare}.
{Little Englander}, an Englishman opposed to territorial expansion of the British Empire. See {Antiimperialism}, above. Hence:
{Little Englandism}.
{Little finger}, the fourth and smallest finger of the hand.
{Little go} (Eng. Universities), a public examination about the middle of the course, which is less strict and important than the final one; -- called also {smalls}. Cf. {Great go}, under {Great}. --Thackeray.
{Little hours} (R. C. Ch.), the offices of prime, tierce, sext, and nones. Vespers and compline are sometimes included.
{Little-neck clam}, or {Little neck} (Zo["o]l.), the quahog, or round clam.
{Little ones}, young children.
The men, and the women, and the little ones. --Deut. ii. 34.
{Little peach}, a disease of peaches in which the fruit is much dwarfed, and the leaves grow small and thin. The cause is not known.
{Little Rhod"y}, Rhode Island; -- a nickname alluding to its small size. It is the smallest State of the United States.
{Little Sisters of the Poor} (R. C. Ch.), an order of women who care for old men and women and infirm poor, for whom special houses are built. It was established at St. Servan, Britany, France, in 1840, by the Abb['e] Le Pailleur.
{Little slam} (Bridge Whist), the winning of 12 out of the 13 tricks. It counts 20 points on the honor score. Contrasted with {grand slam}. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Little \Lit"tle\, noun
1. That which is little; a small quantity, amount, space, or the like.
Much was in little writ. --Dryden.
There are many expressions, which carrying with them no clear ideas, are like to remove but little of my ignorance. --Locke.
2. A small degree or scale; miniature. '' His picture in little.'' --Shak.
A little, to or in a small degree; to a limited extent; somewhat; for a short time. '' Stay a little.'' --Shak.
The painter flattered her a little. --Shak.
{By little and little}, or {Little by little}, by slow degrees; piecemeal; gradually.
From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Little \Lit"tle\, adverb In a small quantity or degree; not much; slightly; somewhat; -- often with a preceding it. '' The poor sleep little.'' --Otway.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
little
adjective
1: limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent; "a little dining room"; "a little house"; "a small car"; "a little (or small) group"; "a small voice" [syn: {small}] [ant: {large}, {large}]
2: (quantifier used with mass nouns) small in quantity or degree; not much or almost none or (with 'a') at least some; "little rain fell in May"; "gave it little thought"; "little hope remained"; "little time is left"; "we still have little money"; "a little hope remained"; "a little time is left" [syn: {little(a)}] [ant: {much(a)}]
3: of short duration or distance; "a brief stay in the country"; "in a little while"; "it's a little way away" [syn: {brief}]
4: not fully grown; "what a big little boy you are"; "small children" [syn: {small}]
5: (informal terms) small and of little importance; "a fiddling sum of money"; "a footling gesture"; "our worries are lilliputian compared with those of countries that are at war"; "a little (or small) matter"; "Mickey Mouse regulations"; "a dispute over niggling details"; "limited to petty enterprises"; "piffling efforts"; "giving a police officer a free meal may be against the law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction" [syn: {fiddling}, {footling}, {lilliputian}, {Mickey Mouse}, {niggling}, {piddling}, {piffling}, {petty}, {picayune}, {trivial}]
6: (of a voice) faint; "a little voice"; "a still small voice" [syn: {small}]
7: younger brother or sister; "little brother" [syn: {little(a)}, {younger}] [ant: {big(a)}]
8: lowercase; "little a"; "small a"; "e.e.cummings's poetry is written all in minuscule letters" [syn: {minuscule}, {small}]
9: small in a way that arouses feelings (of tenderness or its opposite depending on the context); "a nice little job"; "bless your little heart"; "my dear little mother"; "a sweet little deal"; "I'm tired of your petty little schemes"; "filthy little tricks"; "what a nasty little situation"
noun: a small amount or duration; "he accepted the little they gave him"
adverb: not much; "he talked little about his family"
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
337 Moby Thesaurus words for "little": Lilliputian, a bit, a breath, a little, abject, abominable, ace, arrant, atom, atrocious, authoritarian, baby, back-burner, bantam, barely, base, beggarly, bigot, bigoted, bit, borne, bowshot, brief, brief span, by a hair, by an ace, casual, cheap, cheesy, close quarters, close range, closed, collateral, compact, compendious, concise, constricted, contemptible, crack, cramped, creedbound, crumb, crummy, cursory, curt, curtal, curtate, dab, deaf, deaf to reason, debased, decurtate, deficient, degraded, depraved, depthless, despicable, diminutive, dinky, dirty, disgusting, dispensable, dole, dollop, dot, dram, dribble, driblet, dwarf, earreach, earshot, elfin, ever so little, execrable, exiguous, exiguously, faintly, fanatical, farthing, feebly, few, flagrant, fleck, flyspeck, footling, fortuitous, foul, fragment, fulsome, gobbet, grain, granule, grave, groat, gross, gunshot, hair, hair space, hairbreadth, hairsbreadth, half-pint, handful, hardly, hardly any, hardly ever, heinous, hidebound, illiberal, immaterial, imperfect, imperfectly, in a nutshell, in miniature, in the small, inadequate, inappreciable, inappreciably, inch, incidental, incompetent, inconsequential, inconsequentially, inconsiderable, ineffectual, inessential, inferior, infinitesimal, infrequently, insignificant, insignificantly, instant, instantaneous, insufficient, insular, iota, irrelevant, itsy-bitsy, itty-bitty, jot, just a bit, knee-high, light, lightly, limited, little bit, little ways, little while, little-minded, low, low-down, lumpen, maladroit, mangy, meager, meagerly, mean, mean-minded, mean-spirited, measly, mediocre, microscopic, midget, mingy, mini, miniature, minim, minimally, minimum, minor, minuscule, minute, minutely, minutiae, miserable, mite, modicum, molecule, moment, monkey, monstrous, mote, narrow, narrow-hearted, narrow-minded, narrow-souled, narrow-spirited, nearsighted, nefarious, negligible, negligibly, niggard, niggardly, no, no great shakes, no time, nonessential, not any, not comparable, not enough, not hardly, not in it, not much, not vital, nutshell, obnoxious, odious, one-horse, only just, ounce, out of it, pair of winks, paltry, parochial, particle, pebble, petit, petite, petty, picayune, picayunish, piddling, pinch, pindling, pint-sized, pistol shot, pittance, point, poky, poor, potty, provincial, puny, purblind, pygmy, rank, rarely, reptilian, scabby, scant, scantily, scanty, scarcely, scrap, scrubby, scruffy, scruple, scummy, scurvy, secondary, seldom, self-centered, selfish, set, shabby, shallow, shoddy, shoestring, short, short and sweet, short distance, short piece, short spell, short time, short way, shortsighted, skimpy, skin-deep, slight, slightly, small, small space, small-beer, small-minded, smallish, smally, smidgen, smidgin, smitch, span, sparse, speck, spitting distance, spoonful, spot, spurt, squalid, step, stingy, straitlaced, stuffy, subordinate, subsidiary, succinct, summary, superficial, synoptic, tant soit peu, taste, technical, teensy-weensy, teeny, teeny-weeny, thimbleful, tiny, tiny bit, tittle, toy, transient, trifling, trifling amount, triflingly, trivia, trivial, two shakes, two-by-four, uncatholic, uncharitable, unchivalrous, undersized, unessential, unfrequently, ungenerous, unimaginative, unimportant, unimpressive, unliberal, unmentionable, unnoteworthy, unoften, unskillful, vile, weakly, wee, whit, wretched, young, youthful
From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:
LITTLE A typeless language used to produce machine-independent software. LITTLE has been used to implement SETL. "Guide to the LITTLE Language", D. Shields, LITTLE Newsletter 33, Courant Inst (Aug 1977).
From U.S. Gazetteer (1990) [gazetteer]:
Little, KY Zip code(s): 41346
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