niewielki

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Old Polish

Alternative forms

Etymology

From nie- +‎ wielki. First attested in the 15th century.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): (10th–15th CE) /ɲɛvjɛlʲkiː/
  • IPA(key): (15th CE) /ɲɛvjɛlʲki/

Adjective

niewielki (diminutive niewieliczski)

  1. (attested in Lesser Poland) not big; small, little
    • End of the 15th century, Ladislas of Gielniów, De nativitate Domini - Pieśń o narodzeniu Pańskim, Gielniów, line 5:
      Bethleem, myastho nyewyelgye, myalo gosczye thedy mnogye
      [Betleem miasto niewielgie, miało goście tedy mnogie]
  2. not big; unimportant, nonsignificant, insubstantial
    • Middle of the 15th century, Rozmyślanie o żywocie Pana Jezusa, page 743:
      Rzekącz k temv, yzby yego czlovyeka vyna [yego] byla nyevyelyka
      [Rzekąć k temu, iżby tego człowieka wina jego była niewielika]

Descendants

  • Polish: niewielki
  • Silesian: niywielki

References

  • B. Sieradzka-Baziur, Ewa Deptuchowa, Joanna Duska, Mariusz Frodyma, Beata Hejmo, Dorota Janeczko, Katarzyna Jasińska, Krystyna Kajtoch, Joanna Kozioł, Marian Kucała, Dorota Mika, Gabriela Niemiec, Urszula Poprawska, Elżbieta Supranowicz, Ludwika Szelachowska-Winiarzowa, Zofia Wanicowa, Piotr Szpor, Bartłomiej Borek, editors (2011–2015), “niewielki”, in Słownik pojęciowy języka staropolskiego (in Polish), Kraków: IJP PAN, →ISBN

Polish

Alternative forms

Etymology

Inherited from Old Polish niewielki. By surface analysis, nie- +‎ wielki. Compare Kashubian niewiôldżi.

Pronunciation

 
  • Audio:(file)
  • Rhymes: -ɛlki
  • Syllabification: nie‧wiel‧ki

Adjective

niewielki (comparative bardziej niewielki, superlative najbardziej niewielki, no derived adverb)

  1. (litotes) not big; small, little
    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:mały
    Antonym: wielki
  2. not big; unimportant, nonsignificant, insubstantial
    Synonyms: nieistotny; see also Thesaurus:mały
    Antonym: wielki

Declension

Trivia

According to Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej (1990), niewielki is one of the most used words in Polish, appearing 40 times in scientific texts, 18 times in news, 10 times in essays, 12 times in fiction, and 4 times in plays, each out of a corpus of 100,000 words, totaling 84 times, making it the 760th most common word in a corpus of 500,000 words.[1]

References

  1. ^ Ida Kurcz (1990) “niewielki”, in Słownik frekwencyjny polszczyzny współczesnej (in Polish), volume 1, Kraków, Warszawa: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Języka Polskiego, page 290

Further reading