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Petty   /pˈɛti/   Listen
Petty

adjective
(compar. pettier; superl. pettiest)
1.
Inferior in rank or status.  Synonyms: junior-grade, lower-ranking, lowly, secondary, subaltern.  "A lowly corporal" , "Petty officialdom" , "A subordinate functionary"
2.
(informal) small and of little importance.  Synonyms: fiddling, footling, lilliputian, little, niggling, picayune, piddling, piffling, trivial.  "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"
3.
Contemptibly narrow in outlook.  Synonym: small-minded.  "Disgusted with their small-minded pettiness"
noun
1.
Larceny of property having a value less than some amount (the amount varies by locale).  Synonyms: petit larceny, petty larceny.  Antonym: grand larceny.



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"Petty" Quotes from Famous Books



... Scriptures, that 'for every idle word we shall be brought to account,' so, in a particular manner, must we be judged for all those idle words and actions which have inflicted on any of our fellow-creatures pains we have no right to bestow, or tempted them to sins they had no inclination to follow; the petty tyrannies of our whims, changes, and fancies—of our scoldings, complainings, peremptory orders, and causeless contradictions, will all one day swell that awful list of sins, of which it may be truly said, 'we cannot answer ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland

... understood. The woods which controlled and regulated the flow of the river-sources were very often in one jurisdiction, the plains to be irrigated, or to be inundated by floods and desolated by torrents, in another. Concert of action, on such a subject, between a multitude of jealous petty sovereignties, was obviously impossible, and nothing but the permanent union of all the Italian States under a single government can render practicable the establishment of such arrangements for the conservation and restoration of the forests, and the regulation ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh

... folkways are produced consists in the frequent repetition of petty acts, often by great numbers acting in concert or, at least, acting in the same way when face to face with the same need. The immediate motive is interest. It produces habit in the individual and custom in ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park

... quirks and quibbles to the great purposes of law; nor a modern bland governor, who lets a murderer loose out of politeness to the murderer's mistress. He hated crime; he whipped the criminal; no petty forms and no petty men of forms could stand between him and a rascal. He had the sense to see that this course was not cruel, but merciful. In the eighteen years before Richelieu's administration, four thousand men perished in duels; in the ten years after Richelieu's death nearly a thousand ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various

... angry. Now she had been forestalled. She failed to perceive that the backslidings of his wife must of necessity touch him more nearly than those of his subaltern, and that to her own extravagance was added a host of petty evasions and deceits such as a man of his type would be little ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver


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