as in nominal
so small or unimportant as to warrant little or no attention
raised one final, piddling objection to the plan
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Recent Examples of piddling
Star Tribune, 3 Dec. 2020
Millions of additional claims are expected to stream in from around the country over the coming weeks, while hiring remains piddling.
—Patricia Cohen, New York Times, 23 Apr. 2020
What’s particularly baffling is that Syria now produces a piddling amount of oil—about as much as Utah.
—Robin Wright, The New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2019
That will make the current economic uncertainty look piddling.
—Daniel W. Drezner, Twin Cities, 15 Aug. 2019
In the battle for mind share, in the Trumpian quest to be part of every conversation, the Pixel far outweighs its piddling sales.
—Vlad Savov, The Verge, 16 Oct. 2018
Of those, only four rather piddling victories went the liberals’ way.
—The Economist, 30 June 2018
Learning about other runners' struggles and triumphs helps put my piddling run into a bigger narrative, often allowing me to see myself differently within another story.
—Alli Harvey, Anchorage Daily News, 21 June 2018
How to: Improve the Wi-Fi reception in your home
The most-improved was Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which went from a piddling 2.68 Mbps download speed in 2017 to 59.62 Mbps this year.
—Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle, 12 June 2018
Adjective
Then, the pandemic reduced the schedule to 60 games and Eddie got a piddling 37%.
—Star Tribune, 3 Dec. 2020
Millions of additional claims are expected to stream in from around the country over the coming weeks, while hiring remains piddling.
—Patricia Cohen, New York Times, 23 Apr. 2020
What’s particularly baffling is that Syria now produces a piddling amount of oil—about as much as Utah.
—Robin Wright, The New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2019
That will make the current economic uncertainty look piddling.
—Daniel W. Drezner, Twin Cities, 15 Aug. 2019
In the battle for mind share, in the Trumpian quest to be part of every conversation, the Pixel far outweighs its piddling sales.
—Vlad Savov, The Verge, 16 Oct. 2018
Of those, only four rather piddling victories went the liberals’ way.
—The Economist, 30 June 2018
Learning about other runners' struggles and triumphs helps put my piddling run into a bigger narrative, often allowing me to see myself differently within another story.
—Alli Harvey, Anchorage Daily News, 21 June 2018
How to: Improve the Wi-Fi reception in your home
The most-improved was Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which went from a piddling 2.68 Mbps download speed in 2017 to 59.62 Mbps this year.
—Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle, 12 June 2018
Recent Examples of Synonyms for piddling
Adjective
-
Recommendations from the Department of Government Efficiency, which Trump says Musk heads despite another nominal administrator, led to firing tens of thousands of workers and targeted more.—
Joey Garrison,
USA TODAY,
9 Mar. 2025
-
The exposures listed on the initial holdings list do add up to more than 100%, with nominal bonds as the biggest category.—
Jesse Pound,
CNBC,
6 Mar. 2025
Adjective
-
Making one bet at a slight little edge is not going to have a huge effect on someone's bracket.—
Ars Technica,
Ars Technica,
20 Mar. 2025
-
Zero Day held a slight lead with 1.84 billion minutes of viewing to 1.81 billion for Reacher.—
Rick Porter,
The Hollywood Reporter,
20 Mar. 2025
Adjective
-
Instead of worksheets and textbooks, children practice adding and subtracting with tiny toy bears.—
Cory Turner,
NPR,
17 Mar. 2025
-
Pollen Pollen is a powdery substance made of tiny grains that plants release to propagate.—
Nancy LeBrun,
Verywell Health,
17 Mar. 2025
Adjective
-
That sketch, coming just before the episode’s closing performance by Cypress Hill, was the hour’s peak, containing all the promise of petty obsessions afforded airtime in a chorus of besuited actors shouting a monologue as one.—
Alison Herman,
Variety,
13 Mar. 2025
-
This isn’t to say the vigilante trans group in the new world is free of petty catfights.—
Grace Byron,
Vulture,
11 Mar. 2025
Adjective
-
Given this, there is no straightforward way to understand what a model is doing on an intuitive level, as from our perspective running inference on a model is nothing more than executing trillions of trivial operations such as addition and multiplication.—
Rahul Gudise,
Forbes,
7 Mar. 2025
-
And figuring out that amount was not a trivial task.—
Jayson Stewart,
IEEE Spectrum,
5 Mar. 2025
Verb
-
Liverpool are regularly seeing apps that replicate the appearance of genuine tickets — fooling not just first-time visitors to Anfield.—
James Pearce,
The Athletic,
2 Jan. 2025
-
The ultimate aim is, with the use of multiple layers of such transformations, fooling malware classifiers into thinking malicious code is, in fact, totally benign.—
Davey Winder,
Forbes,
24 Dec. 2024
Adjective
-
With that much water needed for even the most trifling tasks, the natural question becomes: How does that water reach those data centers, let alone the world’s farms and factories?—
IEEE Spectrum,
IEEE Spectrum,
28 May 2010
-
And yet the movie’s insularity feels trifling and empty.—
David Rooney,
The Hollywood Reporter,
17 Feb. 2024
Verb
-
The loud ticking sound when my car is idling.—
Chicago Tribune,
Chicago Tribune,
28 Dec. 2024
-
My heartbeat pounded in my ears, drowning out the anticipatory purr of two ambulance engines idling nearby.—
Daphne Ewing-Chow,
Forbes,
23 Dec. 2024
Cite this Entry
“Piddling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/piddling. Accessed 23 Mar. 2025.
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