Meaning of mustard seed | Babel Free

Definitions

1. A small, round seed of the mustard plant.
   countable, uncountable
2. A small amount.
   countable, figuratively, uncountable
3. Small lead shot, usually of size No. 12, used for shooting birds and other animals at close range.
   also, attributive, countable, uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“Start with a mustard seed of irrelevant fact. Rutherford Hayes’s wife, Lucy, was the first American president’s wife to be referred to as the first lady.”

“It was obvious to anybody with eyes and ears and a mustard seed of sense that Thomas had been chosen as a blunt instrument of Black oppression.”

“Being myself much given to the collection of birds for scientific purposes, a line of operation, requiring, in most cases, the finest shot that can be procured, I use mustard seed habitually, and have learned, incidentally as it were, its efficacy when directed against birds which, it might be thought, could not be brought down with it.”

““ […] Much as I hated to do it, while that sow was chasing after him, I let him have it in the stern with a light load of mustard-seed shot. That combination worked!” […] The mustard-seed shot he mentions are No. 12's and the load was extremely light.”

“Hmmmm... you suppose if you miss, you might blow a 1+1/2" hole anyway, with that rig? :) Even #9? 22rf shot (mustard seed) is supposed to be #12, not sure what that would do either. :/”

CEFR level