Minced

Part of speech: adjective, verb

Definitions

1. Cut into very small pieces, especially food such as meat or vegetables ; spoken with careful or affected delicacy or precision
2. Prepared by chopping finely, typically used for cooking ; said with artificial or cautious politeness or overcareful enunciation
3. Reduced to tiny bits, often to make food easier to cook or digest ; expressed in a manner that avoids plainness, sometimes overly refined or indirect

Etymology: "Minced" is the past participle of "mince," and it reaches back to Middle English, where the form appeared as "mynced" and "ymynced." The verb "mince" itself came into English from Old French "mincier," meaning to cut into small pieces, and that is the sense the word has kept ever since. The "-ed" ending is the ordinary past participle marker, so the word's real story belongs to the verb. The verb's older roots lie in Old French, whose "mincier" is the source of the English verb. Because the participle simply follows the verb's history, "minced" has always meant chopped into small pieces, and its later figurative uses, such as "minced words" for speech that is held back or softened, grew out of that original idea of cutting something fine.

Synonyms: chopped, diced, ground, crushed, pureed

Antonyms: whole, intact, unbroken