small print
5
3.8
- noun
- /smɔl prɪnt/
:
letra pequeña
- Make sure to read the small print before you sign the contract.
- reading the small print
It even says in the small, small print, it's like this number was given to them by community.
- It even says in the small, small print, it's like this number was given to them by community.
- Because obviously it's based on fact, but you're like they say on the small print thing, you can exaggerate it for fictional entertainment, can't you?
Examples
-
The warnings that appeared in newspapers were usually vague and in small print.
Academic text (1991) -
That sounds like the small print in one of our insurance policies.
-
Told you to read the small print.
-
Well, it was in the small print.
-
Look at the small print.
-
I thought marriage was one of those until I read the small print.
Fiction book (1999) -
What's all that small print?
-
We each of us found ourselves in need of a cheap place to stay, and neglected to read the small print.
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Yet hidden in the small print of the budget was a billion # cut to day-to-day defence spending.
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Tip! Thoroughly read the small print before signing a secured credit card application.
Blog text (27)
Synonyms
37
4.4
Small printed text in a contract that tells important rules or extra costs
1
9.3
People print words very small in documents to hide important details
Antonyms
How Noticeable
355
1.0
5
3.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase is compositionally built from 'small' + 'print', so a B1 learner will readily understand it as text printed in small type. However, the conventionalized pragmatic meaning — that these are the important or often-hidden contractual conditions — goes beyond the literal description and requires genre/cultural knowledge, so the interpretation is not fully predictable from the parts alone. Many languages have equivalent expressions (e.g., 'letra pequeña'), which aids comprehension but does not make the idiomatic sense wholly transparent.
Etymology
Small print comes from the practice of putting important rules in very small print at the bottom of a document, so people could easily miss them. That's why today small print means the 'important details' or 'conditions' that are hidden or easy to miss.