It's the Word of the Day podcast for January 18th.
Today's word is miniscule, spelled M-I-N-U-S-C-U-L-E.
Miniscule is an adjective.
Something described as miniscule is very small.
Minuscule can also mean written in or in the size or style of lowercase letters,
in which case it can be contrasted with the word majuscular.
Here's the word used in a sentence from Byte,
an incisive history of teeth from hagfish to humans by Bill Schutt.
resembling a stout field mouse, B. Brevacauda, is a tiny,
burrowing mammal with inconspicuous ears and minuscule eyes well hidden behind a long, narrow snout.
The word minuscule comes from the Latin adjective minusculus,
meaning somewhat smaller or fairly small,
which in turn pairs the base of minus, meaning smaller,
with culus, a diminutive suffix that is one indicating small size.
The miniscule spelling with a U is consistent with the words etymology,
but that didn't stop English speakers from adopting the variant spelling miniscule with an I,
likely because they associated it with the combining form mini,
and such words as minimal and minimum.
Usage commentators generally consider the miniscule with an I spelling an error.
but it's widely used in reputable and carefully edited publications and is accepted as a legitimate variant in some dictionaries.