Useless word

As a writer, certain words annoy me.

For example, the word minute, an indication of 60 seconds of time, is spelled the same as minute, meaning small.

I hate this. I have been forced to abandon the use of minute, meaning small, more than once because of the confusion that it causes when read. In fact, I would argue that the word minute (meaning small) cannot be effectively used in writing without briefly distracting the reader.

What good is a word that I can’t ever use?