diminutive

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• adjective Extremely or extraordinarily small. synonym: small.
• adjective Grammar Of or being a suffix that indicates smallness or, by semantic extension, qualities such as youth, familiarity, affection, or contempt, as -let in booklet, -kin in lambkin, or -et in nymphet.
• noun Grammar A diminutive suffix, word, or name.
• noun A very small person or thing.

from The Century Dictionary.

• Small; little; narrow; contracted: as, a race of diminutive men; a diminutive house.
• Having the power of diminishing or lessening; tending to diminish, decrease, or abridge.
• In grammar, expressing something small or little: as, a diminutive word; the diminutive suffixes ‘-kin.’ ‘-let,’ ‘-ling,’ etc. See II., 3.
• noun I. Anything very small as to size, importance, value, etc.: as, a dainty diminutive
• noun In old medicine, something that diminishes or abates.
• noun In grammar, a word formed from another word, usually an appellative or generic term, to express a little thing of the kind: as, in Latin,lapillus, a little stone, from lapis, a stone; cellula, a little cell, from cella, a cell; in French, maisonnette, a little house, from maison, a house; in English, manikin, a little man, from man; rivulet, which a double diminutive, being from Latin rivulus, a diminutive of rivus, a river, with the English diminutive of rivus, a river, with the English diminutive termination -et.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun Something of very small size or value; an insignificant thing.
• noun (Gram.) A derivative from a noun, denoting a small or a young object of the same kind with that denoted by the primitive.
• adjective Below the average size; very small; little.
• adjective Expressing diminution.
• adjective rare Tending to diminish.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• adjective Very small.
• adjective Serving to diminish.
• adjective grammar Of or pertaining to, or creating a word form expressing smallness, youth, unimportance, or endearment.
• noun grammar A word form expressing smallness, youth, unimportance, or endearment.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun a word that is formed with a suffix (such as -let or -kin) to indicate smallness
• adjective very small