minion [E16th] Original senses of minion included a ruler’s (usually male) favourite, a lover, or as a term of affection. All these degenerated: the ruler’s favourite acquired offensive suggestions of homosexuality or became a servant or henchman; the lover became a kept man or woman; and the term of affection became an address to an underling and then dropped out of use. The most usual sense today is ‘henchman’, a sense given a boost by the 2015 animated film Minions. The word is a borrowing of French mignon, which had all the senses of minion before it was borrowed, and also the sense ‘prettily small or delicate’. Mignon, keeping the French form, was reborrowed in this sense in the late 17th century.