Minimise or minimize?
In American English write minimize; in British and Commonwealth English, minimise. minimise is a verb meaning “Non-Oxford British English standard spelling of minimize”; minimize is a verb meaning “To make (something) smaller or as small as possible; shrink; reduce”. In written English (wordfreq, 2021 data) minimize is about 4.3 times as common as minimise.
What is the difference between minimise and minimize?
| minimise | minimize | |
|---|---|---|
| Part of speech | verb | verb |
| Meaning | To make (something) smaller or as small as possible; shrink; reduce To relegate or assign (something) to a less insignificant status; diminish | |
| Example | none recorded | We have to minimize the budget |
| Forms | minimises, minimising, minimised | minimizes, minimizing, minimized |
| Pronunciation | not recorded | /ˈmɪn.ɪ.maɪz/ /ˈmɪn.ɪˌmaɪz/ /ˈmɪn.əˌmaɪz/ |
| Region | UK | no label |
| In writing | 1.5 times per million words | 6.3 times per million words |
Sources: minimise and minimize in the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
Every current meaning of minimise and minimize
minimize
- 1
To make (something) smaller or as small as possible; shrink; reduce
We have to minimize the budget
- 2
To relegate or assign (something) to a less insignificant status; diminish
The insurance adjuster tried to minimize the extent of the damage to lessen the company's exposure to liability
- 3
To remove (a window) from the main display area, collapsing it to an icon or caption
I didn't close anything, but I minimized all the windows so I could see the desktop
- 4
To treat (someone) in a slighting manner
- 5
To treat as trivial or insignificant; to trivialize
to minimize someone's feelings
Source: the English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0); obsolete, archaic, dialect and rare senses left out.
Which is more common, minimise or minimize?
minimise appears 1.5 times per million words; minimize 6.3 times per million words.
minimise 1.5 times per million wordsminimize 6.3 times per million words
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How many people search minimise vs minimize?
“minimise vs minimize” is searched about 480 times a month on Google and 10 on Bing in the United States. Google counts close variants of a query together (“minimize vs minimise”, “minimise or minimize”).
Sources: Google Ads keyword data through DataForSEO and Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, the average month from September 2025 to August 2026.