trifle
nounEtymology
From Middle English trifle, trifel, triful, trefle, truyfle, trufful, from Old French trufle (“mockery”), a byform of trufe, truffe (“deception”), of uncertain origin.
- inherited from trifle
Definitions
An English dessert made from a mixture of thick custard, fruit, sponge cake, jelly and…
An English dessert made from a mixture of thick custard, fruit, sponge cake, jelly and whipped cream.
- It is interesting to watch the surface joviality on screen while racism is layered between courses like soggy trifles.
Anything that is of little importance or worth.
- Trifles light as air / Are to the jealous confirmation strong / As proofs of holy writ.
- Olde Chaucer doth of Topas tell, / Mad Rablais of Pantagruell, / A latter third of Dowsabell, / With such poore trifles playing:
- [W]hen they had the Character and Honour of a VVoman at their Mercy, often times made it their Jest, and at least look’d upon it as a Trifle, and counted the Ruin of thoſe, they had had their VVill of, as a thing of no value.
A very small amount (of something).
- This Line leaves out […] Poplar and Black-vvall, vvhich are indeed contiguous, a Trifle of Ground excepted, and very populous.
- There was a good deal of rustling and whispering behind the curtain, a trifle of lamp smoke, and an occasional giggle from Amy […]
- “Take just a trifle of French mustard […]”
›+ 7 more definitionsshow fewer
A particular kind of pewter.
Utensils made from this particular kind of pewter.
To deal with something as if it were of little importance or worth.
- You must not trifle with her affections.
- […] Do not believe / That, from the sense of all civility, / I thus would play and trifle with your reverence:
- “Miss Bennet,” replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, “you ought to know, that I am not to be trifled with […]”
To act, speak, or otherwise behave with jest.
- […] playing and trifling are completely banished out of my mind […]
- But he was terribly roused too and bound to go on; he wasn’t just trifling but intended something.
To inconsequentially toy with something.
- Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair, trifled with his eye-glass and cast his eyes up at the ceiling […]
- She sat in a café, trifling with her coffee spoon.
To squander or waste.
- We trifle time: I pray thee, pursue sentence.
- For an honest and sober man will rather make that woman his wife, whom he seeth employed continually about her business, than one who makes it her business to trifle away her own and others time.
- As it was, he did nothing with much zeal, but sport; and his time was otherwise trifled away, without benefit from books or anything else.
To make a trifle of, to make trivial.
- […] but this sore night / Hath trifled former knowings.
The neighborhood
- synonymbagatelle
- synonymbag of shells
- synonymbric-a-brac
- synonymdicky
- synonymdicky-bird
- synonymfico
- synonymfig
- synonymflamfew
- synonymflyspeck
- synonymminuity
- synonymniff-naff
- synonympicayune
- neighboreasy thing
- neighbormodicum
- neighborartifact
- neighborobject
- neighborfreebie
- neighborsmall change
- neighbortrinket
Derived
Vish — recursive loop
A definitional loop anchored at trifle. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.
A definitional loop anchored at trifle. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.
8 hops · closes at trifle
curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.
sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA