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Meanings of petty in English
Catalan
rateria Larceny of property having a value less than some amount (the amount varies by locale)
(Informal) small and of little importance.
Related terms
Synonyms
Examples for "little"
Examples for "little"
1
Europe is a different competition and little errors can change the game.
2
The case poses little if any threat to human health, officials said.
3
And some believe market actually picked up a little bit last year.
4
The group also had little time for talk of the euro crisis.
5
The government has so far given away little detail of its plans.
1
Consumers are 'overwhelmed with relatively trivial choices' says a professor of psychology.
2
Did he think her family morally trivial for keeping a clean house?
3
Changes to the Constitution are not done for trivial or transient reasons.
4
I only quote this as a trivial example of observation and inference.
5
There's a tendency to attribute far too much importance to trivial developments.
1
Guess that means I can finally start fiddling with your financial records.
2
I may have helped it freeze by fiddling with certain environmental controls.
3
He was fiddling with the carriage release, exasperated, tugging at the paper.
4
But once you start fiddling with the facts, it's hard to stop.
5
Rupert bristled at the order, but he began fiddling with a console.
1
Everything from diet to niggling little health problems could be causing problems.
2
I need it ASAP. The U.S. case had left a niggling fear.
3
Unfortunately, the beauty of the concept is marred by two niggling problems.
4
But no matter how much sense I made, the niggling had started.
5
Yet there was something niggling about Elder's demeanor, a small discordant something.
1
He felt himself bound and pricked by a thousand delicate lilliputian bonds.
2
This is a pity, as their lilliputian self-assertion is most amusing.
3
In the middle of the lilliputian ranks the giant smoke-clouds leap like hellish gods.
4
This kite system is like fitting a gigantic sail to a lilliputian boat, d'ye see?
5
The lilliputian vehicles are ubiquitous in Japan - and they would be here, if Detroit had any sense.
1
That is not patriotism, but a picayune partisanship which I profoundly pity.
2
You kant show the poor man he's ever took a picayune from.
3
No, sir, it's hot your picayune drop o' spirits that's talkin'-it'sme.
4
He had no reason to think that Cissie cared a picayune about him.
5
Then tossing her a picayune, he said, take that, Aunt Dilsey.
1
Humanity was far too obsessed with numerous piddling things of no interest.
2
A piddling string of munition factories in New York and New Jersey.
3
She was sitting at a table, piddling with a deck of cards.
4
All they've got usually is piddling little Morris Eights or Austin Sevens.
5
You're highly unlikely to do time, especially given your piddling payouts.
1
Inland & Armco, two relatively piffling corporations had not yet boosted prices.
2
I've got out of dead-and-alive Wolvercote at last-stupidCouncillors and piffling necromancers!
3
The Taoiseach and Mr Molloy see it as a piffling matter.
4
Don't be an old maid, Ern, with your piffling German conscientiousness.
5
The poor Central Bank of Ireland only holds a piffling $90 million.
1
She felt it was a footling question even as she asked it.
2
I'm not such an ass as to fall off a footling balcony.
3
Despite Lhel's efforts, the second child came wrong way around, a footling breach.
4
For these two years, therefore, C na T has spent its time footling.
5
Fidgeting, footling, while a companion looked on, and occasionally shifted position.
Inferior in rank or status.
Related terms
Usage of petty in English
1
Social Housing Minister Paula Bennett said the group were playing petty politics.
2
Which was true, of course, and petty of me to bring up.
3
I don't have time to resolve these petty family squabbles right now.
4
Oppression, daily petty harassment and humiliation are the breeding ground for violence.
5
The provost, however, had never wasted his time with such petty artifice.
6
We'll make sure that these petty impediments are resolved within the month.
7
Again, avoid the petty squabbles because you're looking to embrace new vistas.
8
The sternness of the petty officers could not halt the spreading feeling.
9
Your petty Alliance will no longer be of any concern to us.
10
More and more it has resulted in petty tactics for vote catching.
11
Yet this petty brawl was in fact an irreparable and farreaching disaster.
12
It creates the petty thief, and puts him in a bamboo cage.
13
Drink your wine, de Glanville, and put these petty differences behind you.
14
Do so; and you will save yourself a world of petty troubles.
15
After all, that is nothing; petty larceny, six months at the most.
16
He spoiled his chance when he meddled in the petty Italian politics.
About this term
Frequent collocations
More collocations
Petty through the time
Petty across language varieties
United Kingdom
Common
Australia
Common
South Africa
Common
More variants