minion

Etymology

1490, from Middle French mignon (“lover, royal favourite, darling”), from Old French mignon (“dainty, pleasing, gentle, kind”), from Frankish *minnju (“love, friendship, affection, memory”), from Proto-Germanic *minþijō, *mindijō (“affectionate thought, care”), from Proto-Indo-European *men- (“to think”).

noun

1. A loyal servant of another, usually a more powerful being.
   The archvillain deployed his minions to simultaneously rob every bank in the city.
   In the past two years, NASA’s Kepler Space Telescope has located nearly 3,000 exoplanet candidates ranging from sub-Earth-sized minions to gas giants that dwarf our own Jupiter. 2013 May-June, Kevin Heng, “Why Does Nature Form Exoplanets Easily?”, in American Scientist, volume 101, number 3, page 184
2. A sycophantic follower.
3. (obsolete) A loved one; one highly esteemed and favoured.
   God's disciple and his dearest minion 1608, Josuah Sylvester, Du Bartas his divine weekes and workes
4. (obsolete) An ancient form of ordnance with a calibre of about three inches.
   Gun. My Cannons rung like Bells. Here's to my Mistress, The dainty sweet brass Minion: split their Fore-mast, She never fail'd. 1647, Francis Beaumont, Philip Massinger, The Double Marriage (play), published 1717, page 19
5. (uncountable, typography, printing) The size of type between nonpareil and brevier, standardized as 7-point.
6. Obsolete form of minium.

adj

1. (obsolete) Favoured, beloved; "pet".