Search the Dictionary

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

Destitute of dignity or value; paltry; mean. [Obs.]

A mean, paltry fellow; a coward. [Obs.] Shak.

or not genuine; to fabricate; to counterfeit, as, a signature, or a signed document. That paltry story is untrue, And forged to cheat such gulls as you. Hudibras. Forged certificates of his . . . moral character. Macaulay.

ng; grossly rude or disrespectful; saucy; as, an insolent master; an insolent servant. "A paltry, insolent fellow." Shak. Insolent is he that despiseth in his judgment all other folks as in regard of his value, of his cunning, of his speaking, and of his bearing. Chaucer. Can you not see or will ye not observe . . . Ho…

Miserable; pitiful; paltry; -- in a contemptuous or Bp. Stillingfleet. -- Lam"en*ta*ble*ness, n. -- Lam"en*ta*bly, adv.

In a lousy manner; in a mean, paltry manner; scurvily. [Vulgar]

ectacle, or display. The gaze of fools, and pageant of a day ! Pope. We love the man, the paltry pageant you. Cowper.

To trifle with; to waste; to squander in paltry ways or on worthless things. [Obs.] "Palter out your time in the penal statutes." Beau. & Fl.

Paltry; shabby; shabbily; paltrily. [Obs. or Prov. Eng.] "In palterly clothes." Pepys.

In a paltry manner.

The state or quality of being paltry.

A paltry fellow; a rogue; a ninny; a fool. [Obs. or Colloq.] "Thou scurvy patch." Shak. Patch ice, ice in overlapping pieces in the sea. -- Soft patch, a patch for covering a crack in a metallic vessel, as a steam boiler, consisting of soft material, as putty, covered and held in place by a plate bolted or riveted fas…

the idea of something ill-gotten or worthless. It has no plural. "Mucky pelf." Spenser. "Paltry pelf." Burke. Can their pelf prosper, not got by valor or industry Fuller.

Mean; paltry. [Obs.] Shak.

Paltry; quibbling; mean.

The quality or state of being petty or paltry; littleness; meanness.

Petty; paltry; mean; as, a picayunish business. [Colloq. U.S.]

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

Paltry; mean; pitiful. "Piteous amends." Milton.