[f. BE- + LITTLE a. The word appears to have originated in U.S.; whence in recent English use in sense 3.]
1. trans. To diminish in size, make small.
1796. Morse, Amer. Geog., I. 230. On this side of the Atlantic there is a tendency in nature to belittle her productions.
1866. N. Y. Herald, Jan. His occupation is not absolutely gone; but the end of the war has belittled it sadly.
2. To cause to appear small; to dwarf.
1850. Miss Cooper, Rur. Hours, I. 127. The hills … belittle the sheet of water.
1862. B. Taylor, Home & Abr., Ser. II. i. 22. A tower … not so tall as to belittle the main building.
3. To depreciate, decry the importance of.
1789. Gaz. of U.S., 22 July, 1/3. Under the influence of those prejudices, do these British Literati endeavor to BELITTLE the productions of America.
1862. Trollope, N. Amer., II. 25. Washington was a great man, and I believe a good man. I, at any rate, will not belittle him.
1870. Grant White, Words & Uses (1881), 219. Time … spent by each party in belittling and reviling the candidates of its opponents.
1881. Pall Mall Gaz., 10 Dec., 20/2. The Times in 1809 belittled the victory of Talavera.
Hence Belittling ppl. a. and vbl. sb.; Belittlement.
1787. Conn. Courant, 24 Sept., 2/1. For belittling the great objects on which they were to treat to the level of European comprehensions.
1856. Daily Union, 9 May, 3/1. Can the annals of partisanship show a greater amount of calumny, of perversion of fact, of belittlement of talent and character, than were exhibited in the political warfare against all these illustrious democratic leaders?
1856. Susan Warner, Hills of Shatemuc, 179. I never heard such a belittling character of the profession.
1882. Pop. Sc. Monthly, XX. 370. A systematic belittlement of the essential and exaggeration of the non-essential in the story.
1884. Fairbairn, in Contemp. Rev., March, 377. Working, not under the belittling burden of an exhausted yet authoritative past.
