trifle
Pluraltrifles
Verbtrifles, trifling, trifled
Pluraltrifles
Formstrifles, trifling, trifled
- 1Something of little importance or worth.
The brothers stopped speaking for years over what both later admitted was a trifle.
A busy manager has no time for trifles like the color of the meeting-room chairs.
Similartriviality, detail
Note
The word began as a joke or a trick: Middle English took it from Old French trufle, "mockery", a byform of trufe, "deception". What is not worth taking seriously is still its core. Shakespeare's Iago knows that to a jealous mind trifles light as air are as strong as proofs of holy writ, and Lewis Carroll's Alice hopes to shame two quarrelers for fighting over such a trifle as a rattle.
- 2An English dessert that combines sponge cake, fruit, gelatin, thick custard and whipped cream in one dish.
She built the trifle in a glass bowl so guests could see the bands of custard and fruit.
The sherry-soaked trifle was the first dish to disappear from the buffet.
Note
The dessert is built in layers in a deep dish, often a glass bowl, so the bands of sponge, fruit, custard and cream show through the side, and the sponge is usually soaked first in fruit juice or sherry. Spooned from the bowl it is uncountable (a helping of trifle); as whole dishes it counts (two trifles for the party).
- 3A tiny amount of something, such as a pinch of spice or a wisp of smoke.
Stir in a trifle of grated nutmeg just before serving.
When the candle went out, a trifle of smoke curled toward the ceiling.
Similarbit, smidgen, hint, dash, drop
Note
It takes of and a noun, the way smidgen does: a trifle of lamp smoke in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women (1868), just a trifle of French mustard in Graham Greene's Stamboul Train (1932). Next to the small sum, it measures stuff rather than money, and Daniel Defoe could even use it of land, with two districts contiguous, a trifle of ground excepted.
- 4To treat someone or something lightly, as if of little importance or worth.
Nobody who knows this stretch of coast would trifle with a storm warning.
She had trifled with his affections for months before ending things by text.
Note
The verb almost always takes with, and what is trifled with usually deserves care: someone's affections, the law, a person with power. Alan Paton's Cry, the Beloved Country (1948) insists that a judge may not trifle with the law. A favorite frame is the passive warning, as when Jane Austen's Lady Catherine de Bourgh tells Elizabeth Bennet that she is not to be trifled with.
- 5A sum of money so small that it hardly matters.
The painting sold for a trifle in 1950 and is worth millions today.
To a company that size, a thousand-dollar fine is a mere trifle.
Similarpittance
Oppositefortune
Note
Prices are where this use does its work, in two frames: after for, with buying and selling (horses bought for a trifle and sold for incredible sums, in Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey), and as a shrug of an answer (What's eighty dollars? A trifle, in Joseph Conrad's Lord Jim). What counts as a trifle depends on who is paying, as Saul Bellow's Humboldt's Gift makes plain.
- 6To toy idly with something, handling it without any real purpose.
Nervous speakers often trifle with their notes instead of looking at the audience.
She sat by the window, trifling with the ring on her finger.
Similarfiddle, toy, play, fidget
Note
The hands do the trifling here, with small objects within reach: Mr. Micawber's eye-glass in Dickens's David Copperfield, a coffee spoon in Muriel Spark's The Mandelbaum Gate (1965). The gesture suggests idleness or distraction rather than intent, which sets it apart from treating a thing lightly, where a person or a principle is at stake.
- 7To act or speak in a joking, unserious way.
We have no time to trifle; the deadline is tomorrow morning.
She thought he was trifling, but he meant every word of the proposal.
Note
Here the verb stands alone, without the with of trifling with something: the joking is the whole action. It is often defined against serious intent, as when Saul Bellow writes in The Adventures of Augie March (1953) that a man wasn't just trifling but intended something, and it sits comfortably beside playing, its natural partner.
- 8To waste or squander something, especially time, carelessly and to no purpose.
Too many students trifle away the first weeks of the semester and panic before exams.
She regretted having trifled away her twenties in jobs she did not care about.
Similarfritter, idle, waste, squander
Note
Time is nearly always what gets wasted, and the particle away usually comes along: one who trifles away her own and others' time, in Hannah Woolley's The Compleat Servant-Maid (1677), or you who have trifled your life away, in Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway (1925). Shakespeare could leave the particle out: We trifle time, in The Merchant of Venice.
- 9A particular kind of pewter.
The museum's collection includes buckles and spoons cast in trifle.
Molten trifle was poured into the brass molds to make a batch of small buttons.
- 10Utensils made from the particular kind of pewter known as trifle.
A shelf of polished trifle stood beside the hearth in the restored farmhouse.
The museum shows its trifle, a few plates, spoons and drinking cups, in a glass case beside the silver.
Less common meaning
- 11To make something trivial, so that it seems of little importance.
Note
Making something look small by comparison is the idea: in Shakespeare's Macbeth, an old man says this sore night hath trifled former knowings, shrinking every dreadful hour he remembers. The use is obsolete; a modern writer would say the night dwarfs what came before, and the living verb is trifle with or trifle away.
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Practice
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Origin
From Middle English trifle, trufle, from Old French trufle (“mockery”), a variant of trufe, truffe (“deception”), whose origin is uncertain.