SMALLER

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does smaller mean? 

• SMALLER (adjective)
  The adjective SMALLER has 1 sense:

1. small or little relative to something else

  Familiarity information: SMALLER used as an adjective is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SMALLER (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Small or little relative to something else

Synonyms:

littler; smaller

Similar:

little; small (limited or below average in number or quantity or magnitude or extent)

 Context examples 

So he was driven to hunt still smaller things.

(White Fang, by Jack London)

These proteins include specialized motor proteins (dynein and kinesin) and smaller tubulin-crosslinking proteins (tau proteins).

(Microtubule Associated Protein, NCI Thesaurus)

Smaller fragment formed when C5 convertase splits C5 into C5a and C5b.

(C5a, NCI Thesaurus)

The outcome is a smaller version, better for child use.

(New HIV medicine under development for children in Brazil, Agência Brasil/EBC)

A carbohydrate which cannot be reduced to smaller units by hydrolysis; it is the simplest structural form of a carbohydrate.

(Monosaccharide, NCI Thesaurus/CRCH)

Sure enough, smaller tracks of the same general form were running parallel to the large ones.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

When the researchers increased the quantity of vesicles, a much smaller proportion of cells were infected.

(Vesicles released by bacteria may reduce the spread of HIV in human tissue, National Institutes of Health)

It is a smaller version of a working terrier.

(Affenpinscher, NCI Thesaurus)

Describes the smaller groups that a type of cancer can be divided into, based on certain characteristics of the cancer cells.

(Cancer subtype, NCI Dictionary)

On the strength of it he won the Mathematical Chair at one of our smaller universities, and had, to all appearances, a most brilliant career before him.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)