petite

Borrowed from French petite f, feminine of petit m (“small, little”).

• IPA^(key): /pəˈtiːt/

• Audio (Southern England):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -iːt

petite (comparative more petite, superlative most petite)

1. (especially of a woman) Fairly short and of slim build.
2. (clothing) Of small size; intended for small-framed adult women.
3. Small, little; insignificant; petty.
   • 1662, Galileo Galilei, translated by Thomas Salisbury, Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems:

     The Earth, the Sun, and Stars, what things are they in nature? are they petite things not worth our notice, or grand and worthy of consideration?

• petite bourgeoisie
• petite perception

• petite amie
• petitely
• petiteness

petite (plural petites)

1. (genetics) A mutant first discovered in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, forming small colonies when grown in the presence of fermentable carbon sources such as glucose.
   • 2005, Giorgio Bernardi, Structural and Evolutionary Genomics, page 39:

     The primary structure of the mitochondrial genomes of these petites had been previously determined […]

• John A. Simpson and Edmund S. C. Weiner, editors (1989), “petite”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, →ISBN.

• Pettie, Piette

petite

1. past adverbial passive participle of peti

• IPA^(key): /p(ə).tit/
• (Quebec) IPA^(key): /p(ə).tit/, /p(ə).t͡sɪt/

• Audio:

  (file)

petite

1. feminine singular of petit

petite

1. second-person plural present active imperative of petō