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A minute and tedious discourse on trifling things.

Lack of gravity and earnestness in deportment or character; trifling gayety; frivolity; sportiveness; vanity. " A spirit of levity and libertinism." Atterbury. He never employed his omnipotence out of levity. Calamy.

To lodge; to sleep. Whiles I was now trifling at home, I saw London, . . . where I lay one night only. Evelyn. Mr. Quinion lay at our house that night. Dickens.

Easy to admit influence; inconsiderate; easily influenced by trifling considerations; unsteady; unsettled; volatile; as, a light, vain person; a light mind. There is no greater argument of a light and inconsiderate person than profanely to scoff at religion. Tillotson.

nsequence; not be dispensed with; important. Discourse, which was always material, never trifling. Evelyn. I shall, in the account of simple ideas, set down only such as are most material to our present purpose. Locke.

, a man who makes or deals in millinery; hence, contemptuously, a man who is busied with trifling occupations or embellishments.

Of trifling moment; nimportant; trivial. [Obs.] The letter was not nice, but full of charge Of dear import. Shak.

more than. Chaucer. -- To make nothing of. (a) To make no difficulty of; to consider as trifling or important. "We are industrious to preserve our bodies from slavery, but we make nothing of suffering our souls to be slaves to our lusts." Ray. (b) Not to understand; as, I could make nothing of what he said.…

Futility; trifling talk or behavior; drollery. [R.] Dr. H. More.

The act or practice of trifling. [R.] Bacon.

Trifling; vain; futile; insignificant.

To render trifling or futile; to make silly. [R.] Coleridge.

A dish of stewed meat of different kinds. [Obs.] Besides a good olio, the dishes were trifling. Evelyn.

Mean; vile; worthless; despicable; contemptible; pitiful; trifling; as, a paltry excuse; paltry gold. Cowper. The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost. Byron.

sudden, overpowering fright; esp., a sudden and groundless fright; terror inspired by a trifling cause or a misapprehension of danger; as, the troops were seized with a panic; they fled in a panic.

l of anger. Pardon looks more to outward things or consequences, and is often applied to trifling matters, as when we beg pardon for interrupting a man, or for jostling him in a crowd. The civil magistrate also grants a pardon, and not forgiveness. The two words are, therefore, very clearly distinguished from each othe…

Trifling; trickery. [Obs.] "Look . . . into these their deceitful peddleries." Milton.

Silly; childish; trifling. [Obs.] To send such peevish tokens to a king. Shak.

Little; trifling; inconsiderable; also, inferior; subordinate; as, a petty fault; a petty prince. Denham. Like a petty god I walked about, admired of all. Milton. Petty averages. See under Average. -- Petty cash, money expended or received in small items or amounts. -- Petty officer, a subofficer in the navy, as a gu…

Trifling; trivial; frivolous; paltry; -- applied to persons and things. The ignoble hucksterage of piddling tithes. Milton.