mindestens

Mindestens is a German adverb meaning “at least” or “not less than.” It marks a lower bound for quantity, duration, degree, or importance. It is used with numerals and with time or distance expressions, and it can stand before the unit or after the number: “mindestens fünf Personen,” “mindestens zwei Wochen,” “mindestens 20 Euro.” It can also introduce a clause: “Es braucht mindestens fünf Personen, damit das Experiment läuft.” Mindestens can appear at the beginning of a sentence for emphasis: “Mindestens drei Gründe sprechen dafür.”

In usage, mindestens conveys a minimum requirement or threshold rather than an exact value. It is common in formal, administrative, and everyday language alike. The word is often contrasted with its opposites höchs­tens (“at most”) and with related terms like zumindest (“at least, at minimum, at the very least”) and wenigstens (a near-synonym, more colloquial).

Synonyms and related terms: zumindest, wenigstens, and höchtens (as the antonym). The nuance between mindestens and zumindest is subtle: zumindest often implies a minimal concession or a soft lower bound in a broader context, while mindestens emphasizes a definite minimum.

Etymology and related forms: Mindestens derives from the concept of minimum and is part of a family of degree words in German, such as höchstens and zumindest. It functions as an adverb and does not inflect for number or gender.

See also: höchstens, zumindest, wenigstens.