Origins
The English adjective 'small' has undergone one of the more interesting semantic shifts in Germanic vocabulary. It descends from Old English 'smæl,' but in Old English this word did not mean 'small' in the modern sense. It meant 'thin,' 'narrow,' or 'slender' — describing one dimension rather than overall size. The modern sense of general smallness developed gradually through the Middle English period, making English the only Germanic language in which this word broadened from 'narrow' to 'little.'
The Old English form comes from Proto-Germanic *smalaz, which consistently meant 'thin' or 'narrow' across the Germanic family. The cognates confirm this: German 'schmal' means 'narrow' (a narrow path is 'ein schmaler Weg'), Dutch 'smal' means 'narrow,' Swedish 'smal' means 'narrow' or 'thin,' and Old Norse 'smalr' meant 'thin, small, narrow.' None of these cognates has undergone the same broadening that English 'small' has. In each of these languages, the primary word for 'small' or 'little' comes from a different root.
The survival of the original narrow-thin sense in English is visible in a few fossil expressions. 'The small of the back' refers to the narrowest part of the lower back — 'small' here means 'narrow,' exactly as it did in Old English. 'Small hours' (the early morning hours) may also preserve something of this sense, though the connection is debated; it could alternatively reflect the 'diminished' quality of those quiet, thin hours between midnight and dawn.
Old English Period
In Old English, the primary word for general smallness was 'lȳtel' (the ancestor of 'little'). During the Middle English period, 'small' and 'little' entered a competition for the semantic space of 'not big,' with 'small' gradually winning the more neutral ground and 'little' retaining stronger connotations of affection, endearment, or dismissal. Modern English preserves this distinction: 'a small dog' is neutral, while 'a little dog' often carries emotional coloring.
The word 'smallpox' provides an instructive example of the word's history. The disease was called 'small pox' (small pocks, or small pustules) in the fifteenth century to distinguish it from 'great pox' (syphilis), which produced larger lesions. Here 'small' is used in its modern sense of 'little in size,' confirming that the semantic shift was complete by the late medieval period.
Proto-Germanic *smalaz has no certain PIE etymology, making it one of those words that may be a Germanic innovation or whose deeper history has been obscured by time. Some scholars have tentatively connected it to PIE *smeh₁l- or to a root meaning 'to cut small,' but these proposals lack the network of cross-family cognates that would make them convincing.
Figurative Development
The derived forms of 'small' are limited compared to some adjectives. 'Smallness' is the abstract noun. 'Small talk' (trivial conversation) dates from the eighteenth century. 'Small-minded' (petty, narrow in outlook) is a seventeenth-century compound that interestingly echoes the word's original 'narrow' meaning, though the metaphor is intellectual rather than physical. 'Smallholding' (a small farm) is primarily British.
The word has also played a notable role in compound place names. In Scandinavian-influenced areas of England, 'smal' in its original 'narrow' sense appears in names like 'Smalldale' (narrow valley). These names preserve the Old English and Old Norse meaning, even as the word's everyday sense changed around them.
Comparatively, the competition between 'small' and 'little' in English has no exact parallel in other Germanic languages. German uses 'klein' (from a different root) as its primary word for 'small' and retains 'schmal' exclusively for 'narrow.' This clean division of labor, which English lacks, makes the English situation — two partially overlapping words for smallness, one (small) from a narrowness root and one (little) from a diminution root — linguistically unusual and a source of ongoing subtle distinction in English prose.