We have the same in France. The first big "big surface" stores were named supermarché, then we got hypermarché and the funniest is that now we have superette, a small surface store, branded like the super/hyper but within the city center.
The "ette" French suffix is to reduce the main word.
> A diminutive is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle something or someone.
Yeah, it's funny, a word consisting both of an augmentative (the opposite of diminutive) and a diminutive.
Same for me. My brain broke down somewhat, but luckily I am retired. I often ask AI like "What's the word for a smaller variant of something?", super helpful.
Were you thinking of „Verkleinerungsform“? Do people still use those Germanized terms? It feels a little old-fashioned to me, like saying „besitzanzeigendes Fürwort“ instead of Possessivpronomen.
I had the word "Verniedlichung" in mind, of course this is also not the right term, but as I been living outside of France for the past 25 years, switching daily between French, German and English, I am sometimes "stuck" and can't get the right word out. And this in whatever language I am thinking at the moment.
I now accept that I am losing my French while not being really fluent in any other language.
In a way? I always found it more sensible to use German words like "Namenwort" instead of "Nomen" to express German grammar, instead of using latin terms. After all Latin is a language that comes from a completely different language family to start with and is not used at all in Germany except when wanting to pretend you're fancy (law, medicine, grammar).
That's meaningful though, at least in my experiences in France circa twenty years ago, a supermarché would be a supermarket like here in the UK, and a hypermarché would have all kinds of other stuff like clothes, back to school stationery, seasonal gear/toys, etc. - as well as other mini shops around the edge, cutting keys, McDo, etc.
I think supermarché is more a type of shop that offers products that are traditionally from different shop (you've got a bakery, green-grocer, butcher, cheese-monger, electronics, etc... under one shop), while the hypermarché are really defined the "big surface" you mentioned.
So it make sense to have a superette in the corner of the street that offer everyday goods while an hypermarché have clothing, DIY materials, big appliances, etc. on sale..
Sorry I explained myself poorly: I wasn't saying that a superette wasn't a supermarket, I was pointing out that OP curious remark about superette being a "small big shop" wasn't as contradictory as it seems.
Also, while we're digging Wikipedia: the French one points to the national statistic institute that have a definition of an hypermarket as "non specialized store that's over 2 500 m^2 in surface and make more than a third of their revenue from food".
We have the same in France. The first big "big surface" stores were named supermarché, then we got hypermarché and the funniest is that now we have superette, a small surface store, branded like the super/hyper but within the city center.
The "ette" French suffix is to reduce the main word.