petite

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

• IPA^(key): /pəˈtiːt/
• 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.
3. Small, little; insignificant; petty.
   • 1662, Thomas Salusbury, Galileo's Dialogue on the Two Systems of the World (Dialogue Two)

     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 perception

• 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/

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petite

1. feminine singular of petit

petite

1. second-person plural present active imperative of petō