- 1跟班、嘍囉、手下（帶點開玩笑或輕視）。卡通《小小兵》後來借用這個幽默意味，不是這個詞較早的用法。
Someone’s minions are the people who just obey, fetch, and do the unskilled jobs around a powerful person — with little power of their own. We almost always say it with a smile or a little sting: the boss sweeps in, and the minions follow with bags and phones. It is not a real job title; it is a , slightly name, more comic than respectful. The word is old. It comes from Middle French mignon, a lover, a royal favourite, a darling — so it started near “beloved” and slid toward “hanger-on.” Though actually many students meet the yellow cartoon Minions first, which took the small-helper joke and made it cute. In grown-up English the word still leans funny, not kind, and you would not thank someone for calling you one.
組成It does not split into English pieces (it is not mini- + something). It comes from Middle French mignon, “lover, royal favourite, darling,” from Old French mignon, “dainty, pleasing,” from a Frankish word for love and affection, from an old root meaning “to think.” First used around 1490. It is a doublet of mignon — same source, two shapes in English.
同家族的字
- mignona doublet from the same French word, still seen in English in names like filet mignon
原始詞典資料7 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
minionnoun/ˈmɪnjən/
- 1
A loyal servant of another, usually a more powerful being.
- The archvillain deployed his minions to simultaneously rob every bank in the city.
- In the past two years, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has located nearly 3,000 exoplanet candidates ranging from sub-Earth-sized minions to gas giants that dwarf our own Jupiter.
- 2
A sycophantic follower.
- 3
mediaprintingpublishingThe size of type between nonpareil and brevier, standardized as 7-point.
- 4
obsoleteA loved one; one highly esteemed and favoured.
- God's disciple and his dearest minion
- Is this the Athenian minion whom the world / Voiced so regardfully?
- 5
obsoleteAn ancient form of ordnance with a calibre of about three inches.
- Gun. My Cannons rung like Bells. Here's to my Mistress, The dainty sweet brass Minion: split their Fore-mast, She never fail'd.
minionadj/ˈmɪnjən/
- 1
obsoleteFavoured, beloved; "pet".
- These favours, with the commodities that follow minion Courtiers, corrupt[…]his libertie, and dazle his judgement.
這個拼法也被記錄為下列字的變化形：
- minium
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。