I would say the correct, nonslang usage is as a modifier to a fixed measure, meaning short/shy of. A “scant cup” of sugar is less than 1 level cup, but more than the nearest common measure below that, 3/4 cup.
I’m a little surprised that nobody has said “pinch” yet, but that isn’t really slang, it is used in cooking.
When surveying, “Think left.” ← “No that was too much.”
BCH
Itty Bitty
Touch, as in just a touch. ← Also needs the, “No, that was too much.”
Pretty much what everyone else has said.
Actually from the clown Little Tich.
His stage name was ironic. Before him, Tich was a nickname for big men. It’s like calling himself the Tiny Giant.
A gnat’s eyelash.
Small unit of time: two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
A New York minute
Ooh ooh, I got this. My SO often refers to a “hepskin” (hep skin?) of something. Like, “this soup just needs a hepskin of salt”. No clue what it is, or even what phrase is being bastardized here. I even challenged him to look it up and there is no record of this term on the interwebs.
Skerrick, although it’s usually used in the negative - “it was bone dry; not a skerrick of water left”. Skerrick means the smallest possible amount.
Our gnats didn’t have eyelashes. So, we said smaller than a gnat’s ass.
A thrip’s tit.
Now, that is interesting.
Bee’s Dick
Gnat’s Whisker
Smidgen
Tad
Bee’s knob
I’ll go with ‘smidgeon’ too, unless you’re referring to the length of a bloke’s dick, in which case it’s a ‘weiner’.
I always saw it spelled “smidgin.”
When working on something like a carpentry project I say “Give it a pthht.” A really short raspberry sound.
Old joke:
A kid tells his dad he spent the day watching the workers at a construction site. Dad says “Great, you can help me build the dog a new house.” They go outside and start.
Dad: “Tell me if this board is straight.”
Kid: “Move it left a cunt hair.”
Dad: “WHAT DID YOU SAY?!”
Kid: “Ah fuck it, nail it.”
My dad once miscut a piece of lumber. When he went to install it, he noticed it was way too short, to which he remarked, “that doesn’t even come to within a row of assholes of being close.”
I suppose in that context “a row of assholes” represents an unacceptably large measurement. So maybe I should have saved it for a thread titled “slang terms for a very large unit of measurement.” Elendil’s Heir, whenever you’re ready…
Huh. I thought I’d coined the term.
Aside from this thread, I only got one relevant return from googling ‘digriz’ and ‘kilobuck’.
Square root of fuck all. It’s an accounting term, apparently.