trifling

Pluraltriflings

1. 1
   minoradjective

   So minor or small as to be of little importance; trivial.

   They sold the old farmhouse for a trifling sum.

   The dispute began over a trifling matter of who would pay for the coffee.

   UsageCommon with sum and matter: a trifling sum, a trifling matter.

   Similartrivial, minor, petty, insignificant, negligible

   Oppositeimportant, significant, considerable, serious

   Note

   Swift's Gulliver blots out passages for fear of being censured as "tedious and trifling", a charge he says travelers often face. Source

   Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact

   • Swift's narrator Gulliver says he deleted passages for fear of being called "tedious and trifling", an accusation often made against travellers. gutenberg.org
2. 2
   mess aroundverb

   Present participle and gerund of trifle: treating someone or something without due seriousness, or idly wasting time or money.

   He was trifling with her feelings and never meant to marry her.

   Rather than trifling away his inheritance on horses and cards, he should have invested it in the family business.

   UsageUsually trifle with someone's feelings, or trifle away time or money.

3. 3
   frivolousadjective

   Lacking seriousness or serious purpose; frivolous.

   She grew tired of his trifling chatter about parties and clothes.

   Critics dismissed the novel as a trifling entertainment with nothing to say.

   Similarfrivolous, idle, shallow, superficial

   Oppositeserious, weighty, earnest

   Note

   Where the trivial sense measures how much something matters, this one judges character and taste: a trifling age, trifling authors, trifling amusements. Robert Dodsley's satire The Toy-Shop (1735) piles the word up exactly that way, until a whole society seems made of trifles. Said of a person it means unserious, which is milder than good-for-nothing. Source

   Checked 31 Oct 2026 · 3 facts

   • Robert Dodsley wrote The Toy-Shop, a dramatic satire. gutenberg.org
   • The Toy-Shop was first published in 1735. gutenberg.org
   • The satire repeatedly applies 'trifling' to society's tastes, including its age, authors and amusements; the passage is spoken by the Master of the Shop. gutenberg.org
4. 4
   no goodadjectivecolloquialUS

   Of a person or behavior, worthless, lazy, shady, or disgustingly careless.

   Her trifling cousin borrowed her car and brought it back on empty.

   "That trifling man hasn't paid child support in a year," she told her sister.

   Similarno-good, worthless, shiftless

   Note

   Today this use belongs chiefly to African American speech, where it is a pointed insult for someone lazy, unreliable or untrustworthy: that trifling man, her trifling cousin. The older unimportant sense survives alongside it, and whether a person or a thing is being described usually tells the reader which is meant.

5. 5
   nouncountable or uncountable

   Frivolous behavior, or an act of toying with things instead of taking them seriously.

   He writes on the principle, of course, that in one's dotage we are privileged to return to the triflings of our infancy, and that Downing Street cannot be better employed in these days than as a chapel of ease to Eton.

   1845, George Croly, Samuel Warren

   Similarfrivolity, dalliance

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