PETTIEST

PETTY

petty, small-minded

(adjective) contemptibly narrow in outlook; “petty little comments”; “disgusted with their small-minded pettiness”

fiddling, footling, lilliputian, little, niggling, piddling, piffling, petty, picayune, trivial

(adjective) (informal) small and of little importance; “a fiddling sum of money”; “a footling gesture”; “our worries are lilliputian compared with those of countries that are at war”; “a little (or small) matter”; “a dispute over niggling details”; “limited to petty enterprises”; “piffling efforts”; “giving a police officer a free meal may be against the law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction”

lowly, lower-ranking, junior-grade, petty, secondary, subaltern

(adjective) inferior in rank or status; “the junior faculty”; “a lowly corporal”; “petty officialdom”; “a subordinate functionary”

Source: WordNet® 3.1


Adjective

pettiest

superlative form of petty: most petty

Source: Wiktionary


PETTY

Pet"ty, a. [Compar. Pettier; superl. Pettiest.] Etym: [OE. petit, F. petit; probably of Celtic origin, and akin to E. piece. Cf. Petit.]

Definition: 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 gunner, etc., corresponding to a noncommissionned officer in the army.

Note: For petty constable, petty jury, petty larceny, petty treason, See Petit.

Syn.

– Little; diminutive; inconsiderable; inferior; trifling; trivial; unimportant; frivolous.

Source: Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary 1913 Edition



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Word of the Day

7 June 2025

PARSEC

(noun) a unit of astronomical length based on the distance from Earth at which stellar parallax is 1 second of arc; equivalent to 3.262 light years


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Coffee Trivia

The word “coffee” entered the English language in 1582 via the Dutch “koffie,” borrowed from the Ottoman Turkish “kahve,” borrowed in turn from the Arabic “qahwah.” The Arabic word qahwah was traditionally held to refer to a type of wine.

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