Let R be a ring. Following the literature, R is called residually finite if for every r ∈ R\{0}, there exists an ideal I r of R such that r / ∈ I r and R/I r is finite. In this note, we define a strictly infinite commutative ring R with identity to be residually small if for every r ∈ R\{0}, there exists an ideal I r of R such that r / ∈ I r and |R/I r | < |R|. The purpose of this article is to study such rings, extending results on (infinite) residually finite rings.Proposition 3. Let R be an infinite Noetherian ring such that |R/J| < |R| for every maximal ideal J of R. Then R is residually small.Proof. Let R be as stated. If x ∈ R is nonzero, then by Lemma 2, there exists a maximal ideal J and positive integer n such that x / ∈ J n . Since |R/J| < |R| and R is infinite, Lemma 1 implies that |R/J n | < |R|. We conclude that R is residually small. Corollary 1. Let R be an infinite Noetherian local ring with maximal ideal J. Then R is residually small if and only if |R/J| < |R|.