(A word coined by Jefferson.) To minify, to treat as of small importance, to depreciate.
1796. The Count de Buffon supposed, that the animals in this country were uniformly less than in Europe, and thence concluded, that, “on this side the Atlantic, there is a tendency in nature to belittle her productions.”—Morse, ‘American Geography,’ i. 230. (N.E.D.)
bef. 1812. Them [books, said a Vermonter] are too ‘belittling,’ as Mr. Jefferson says, for a man to read.—John Bernard, ‘Retrospections of America,’ p. 325 (N.Y., 1887).
1814. President Jefferson [talks] of belittling the productions of nature.—Quarterly Rev., x. 528 (Jan.) (Bartlett).
1816. The Virginian phraseology sounds a little peculiar to a northern ear at times. There is the executive belittle for demean, which, however, being an expressive word, the ex-president hath rather belarged his fame by adding it to our vocabulary.—Henry C. Knight (‘Arthur Singleton’), ‘Letters from the South and West,’ p. 81 (Boston, 1824).
1841. This course was magnifying ourselves, and belittling the mightiness of Mr. Fox.—Mr. Wise of Va., House of Repr., June 25: Cong. Globe, p. 121.
1842. Ridiculed, belittled, and traduced as this measure has been before the people.—Mr. Steenrod of Virginia, the same, Aug. 9: id., p. 27, App.
