Adjective

(en adjective)

Engaging; charming.

Favorably stimulating to the palate; pleasantly spicy; stimulating.

* 2000 , Lynn Bedford Hall, Best of Cooking in South Africa (page 2000)

These chops are baked in a piquant sauce containing fruit, honey, cinnamon, lemon and port, all of which reduces to a spicy syrup.

* 2005 , Clifford A. Wright, Some like it hot: spicy favorites from the world's hot zones

Elsewhere in South America, excepting Bahia in Brazil, one does not encounter piquant cuisine, although one may stumble on a piquant dish now and then...

* 2009 , Sara Engra, Katie Luber, Kimberly Toqe, The Spice Kitchen: Everyday Cooking with Organic Spices (page 9)

French charcuterie relies on cloves in the quatre épices, or four-spice powder, for seasoning fine sausages and piquant marinades.

(archaic) Causing hurt feelings; scathing.

Adjective

(er)

Not large or big; insignificant; few in numbers or size.

* , chapter=5

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of small lights on the choristers' desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep linen collars, and red neckbands.}}

* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)

, title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}

(figuratively) Young, as a child.

(writing, incomparable) Minuscule or lowercase, referring to written letters.

Envincing little worth or ability; not large-minded; paltry; mean.

* Carlyle

A true delineation of the smallest man is capable of interesting the greatest man.

Not prolonged in duration; not extended in time; short.

a small space of time