{"id":23111,"date":"2023-10-19T15:27:55","date_gmt":"2023-10-19T15:27:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23111"},"modified":"2023-10-19T20:18:58","modified_gmt":"2023-10-19T20:18:58","slug":"just-a-smidgen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/?p=23111","title":{"rendered":"Just a Smidgen"},"content":{"rendered":"

How much is a smidgen<\/strong>? How about a tad<\/strong>, dash<\/strong>, drop<\/strong> or pinch<\/strong>?<\/p>\n

\"Jot<\/p>\n

These are all terms that refer to small amounts of things. You might see them in a recipe, or use them to refer to other small quantities or amounts. You can even get measuring spoons for some of them.<\/p>\n

Apparently a tad<\/strong> is \u00bd a teaspoon, a dash<\/strong> is \u215b of a teaspoon. a pinch<\/strong> is 1<\/sup>\u2044<\/big>16<\/sub><\/small> of a teaspoon, a smidgen<\/strong> is 1<\/sup>\u2044<\/big>32<\/sub><\/small> of a teaspoon, and a drop<\/strong> is 1<\/sup>\u2044<\/big>64<\/sub><\/small> of a teaspoon. Other amounts are available. A smidgen<\/strong> could be anything between 1<\/sup>\u2044<\/big>25<\/sub><\/small> and 1<\/sup>\u2044<\/big>48<\/sub><\/small>, with 1<\/sup>\u2044<\/big>32<\/sub><\/small> of a teaspoon being the most commonly used.<\/p>\n

A tad<\/strong> is a small amount or a little bit, and used to mean a street boy or urchin in US slang. It probably comes from tadpole<\/strong>, which comes from Middle English taddepol<\/em>, from tadde<\/em> (toad) and pol(le)<\/em> (scalp, pate).<\/p>\n

A dash<\/strong> is a small quantity of a liquid and various other things. It comes from Middle English daschen\/dassen<\/em> (to hit with a weapon, to run, to break apart), from Old Danish daske<\/em> (to slap, strike).<\/p>\n

A smidgen<\/strong> is a very small quantity or amount. It is probably based on smeddum<\/strong> (fine powder, floor), from Old English sme(o)dma<\/em> (fine flour, pollen meal, meal). Or it might be a diminutive of smitch<\/strong> (a tiny amount), or influenced by the Scots word smitch<\/strong> (stain, speck, small amount, trace). Alternative forms of smidgen<\/strong> include smidge<\/strong>, smidget<\/strong>, smidgeon<\/strong> and smidgin<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

A pinch<\/strong> is a small amount of powder or granules, such that the amount could be held between fingertip and thumb tip, and has various other meanings. It comes from Middle English pinchen<\/em> (to punch, nip, to be stingy), from Old Northern French *pinchier<\/em>, possibly from Vulgar Latin *pinci\u0101re<\/em> (to puncture, pinch), from *puncti\u0101re<\/em> (to puncture, sting), from Latin puncti\u014d<\/em> (a puncture, prick) and *picc\u0101re<\/em> (to strike, sting).<\/p>\n

A drop<\/strong> a very small quantity of liquid, or anything else. It comes from the Middle English drope<\/em> (small quantity of liquid, small or least amount of something) from Old English dropa<\/em> (a drop), from Proto-West Germanic *drop\u014d<\/em> (drop [of liquid]), from Proto-Germanic *drup\u00f4<\/em> (drop [of liquid]),from Proto-Indo-European *d\u02b0rewb-<\/em> (to crumble, grind).<\/p>\n

Do you know any other interesting words for small amounts or quantities?<\/p>\n

Sources:
\nhttps:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/smidgen#English<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/practical-parsimony.blogspot.com\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/tad#English<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/dash#English<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/pinch#English<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/quod.lib.umich.edu\/m\/middle-english-dictionary\/dictionary\/<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/smidgen#English<\/a>
\nhttps:\/\/en.wiktionary.org\/wiki\/drop#English<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

How much is a smidgen? How about a tad, dash, drop or pinch? These are all terms that refer to small amounts of things. You might see them in a recipe, or use them to refer to other small quantities or amounts. You can even get measuring spoons for some of them. Apparently a tad […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,104,10,15,26,33,34,44,45,55,78],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danish","category-english","category-language","category-latin","category-middle-english","category-old-english-aenglisc","category-old-french","category-proto-germanic","category-proto-indo-european","category-scots","category-words-and-phrases"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=23111"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23111\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23126,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23111\/revisions\/23126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=23111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=23111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.omniglot.com\/bloggle\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=23111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}