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

re 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.

udden, 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.

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 other…

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.

To be sequeamish or delicate; hence, to act or talk triflingly or ineffectively; to twaddle; piddle. [Dial. or Slang]

ow one's self headlong or violently forward, as a horse does. Some wild colt, which . . . flings and plunges. Bp. Hall.

Having many grooves; as, a polygrooved rifle or gun (referring to the rifling).

Any trifling ornament for a woman's dress or bonnet.

A trifling, chattering, fop or coxcomb. "To be so pestered with a popinjay." Shak.

literature, the pragmatic, or philosophical, method. The narration of this apparently trifling circumstance belongs to the pragmatism of the history. A. Murphy.