min
Abbreviation with 3 meanings
| Stands for | Minute |
|---|---|
| Meanings | 3 |
| Categories | Units & Measurements, Sports |
| Also written | MIN, min. |
min has three meanings. The most common are Minute (time) and Minimum (math); it can also stand for Minutes.
Meanings of min at a glance
| # | min stands for | Context |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Minute | Units & Measurements › Time |
| 2 | Minimum | Units & Measurements › Math |
| 3 | Minutes | Sports › Basketball |
1. Minute
Units & Measurements · Time Abbreviations
Sixty seconds, a sixtieth of an hour. It appears in cooking times, travel durations, meeting lengths, phone plans and athletic pace, where runners quote minutes per mile or per kilometer.
Example: Bake for 25 to 30 min, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
The SI-accepted symbol is min, with no period and no plural s. The word comes from medieval Latin pars minuta prima, the "first small part" of an hour. In math and spreadsheets min names the minimum function, and in angle notation a prime mark (') denotes a minute of arc, one sixtieth of a degree.
2. Minimum
Units & Measurements · Math Abbreviations · also used in general use
The smallest value in a set or attained by a function, written min{4, 1, 9} = 1. Spreadsheet MIN() and programming min() return the smallest argument.
Example: The lowest score, min(scores), was 62 on the midterm.
The related argmin gives the input where the minimum occurs, a staple of machine learning, which trains models by minimizing a loss function. When a set has no smallest element, such as the open interval (0, 1), mathematicians use the infimum instead. In time contexts min means minute.
3. Minutes (MIN)
Sports · Basketball Abbreviations
Minutes a player was on the court, the first stat column in most box scores. NBA games last 48 minutes in regulation; college, WNBA and FIBA games last 40.
Example: He played 44 MIN in the double-overtime win.
Shown in minutes and seconds (36:12) on some box scores. Coaches manage minutes to avoid fatigue and injury. In general writing MIN is an abbreviation of "minimum" or "minute", and in hockey TOI (time on ice) plays the same role.
Related abbreviations
More time abbreviations
- JD – Julian date (Julian Day number)
- kya – Thousand years ago
- m – Minute (informal)
- Ma – Megaannum (million years)
- MM – Month (two-digit, in date formats)
- MM/DD/YYYY – Month/day/year (US date format)
- mo – Month
- MoM – Month over month
See all 51 time abbreviations →