microscopic.

Requiring magnification to be seen clearly, or extremely small.

Use it for

Words that belong together

• microscopic detail
• microscopic scale

On the page

The microscopic detail was invisible in the ordinary photograph.

A microscopic difference need not have a negligible effect.

Usage notes

Primary category: academic / formal. Forms: Normally relational or categorical; comparison only where the particular property admits gradation. Legacy lexical fields mirror sense 1 only. Use numbered sense fields for all meanings. Established modern English lexical item. No separate regional spelling or grammatical inflection entry. Writing functions: formal properties, scope and scale, organizational relations, analytic representation. Disciplines: academic writing, formal methods, cross-disciplinary analysis. Commonness: moderately common.