the.com/minutiae

The tiny details everyone ignores until they're the only thing that matters.

means The small, precise details of something — the fussy little particulars that make up the whole.

from From Latin minutiae, meaning 'small things' or 'trifles,' itself from minutus — 'made small,' the same root that gives us 'minute' (the tiny measure of time, not the hour-sized one). The Romans used minutiae to talk about petty details, and English borrowed it whole in the 18th century, keeping its slightly dismissive Latin plural intact — a word that looks fussy because it was built to describe fussiness.

plural of
minutia, a word almost nobody uses
pronunciation trap
mi-NOO-shee-ee, not mi-NOO-tee
etymology
latin for small things, literally
devil's address
proverbially lives in the details
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