1 You mince matters to an uncommon nicety.
Return of the Native By Thomas HardyContext Highlight In BOOK 4: 6 A Conjuncture, and Its Result upon the Pedestrian 2 Their elegant bodies swayed as they minced with tiny steps on their little pink feet upon the grass.
3 All shifted, preened, minced; hands were raised, legs shifted.
4 The wife minced a bit of meat, then crumbled some bread on a trencher, and placed it before me.
5 Easily and gracefully did he exchange agreeable bandinage with one lady, and then approach another one with the short, mincing steps usually affected by young-old dandies who are fluttering around the fair.
6 Yet he approached them with great diffidence and none of his late mincing and prancing.
7 That is to say, without mincing words, he invariably set before his hearers the sorrows and the difficulties which may confront a man, the trials and the temptations which may beset him.
8 At the last moment Mollie, the foolish, pretty white mare who drew Mr. Jones's trap, came mincing daintily in, chewing at a lump of sugar.
9 I know no language," he said, "but my own, and a few words of their mincing Norman.
10 My dear," she told her sister in a high mincing shout, "most of these fellas will cheat you every time.
11 Another piece called to her mind a dainty young woman clad in an Empire gown, taking mincing dancing steps as she came down a long avenue between tall hedges.
12 Mr Dedalus imitated the mincing nasal tone of the provincial.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man By James JoyceContext Highlight In Chapter 2