mince [LME] The words mince, *minute ‘small’, menu, and *diminish all derive ultimately from Latin minutus ‘small’. Mince in the sense ‘expressing yourself moderately’, now found mainly in not mince your words, developed from a sense meaning to make light of or indicate disapproval through excessive politeness [M16th], goes back to Shakespeare: in Henry V King Henry says to the French princess he is courting, ‘I know no ways to mince it in love, but directly to say, I love you.’ This use produced ‘to say in an affectedly refined way’ [M16th] and then ‘to walk in an effeminately dainty way’, as early as the 1560s. In the sense ‘ground meat’ mince was earlier mincemeat [M17th] and even earlier minced meat [L16th]. The mincemeat put in pies at Christmas originally contained meat as well as fruit. To make mincemeat of, to defeat easily in a fight or contest, dates from the mid 17th century.