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Meaning of PETTY

Pronunciation:  'petee

WordNet Dictionary
 
 Definition: 
  1. [adj]  contemptibly narrow in outlook; "petty little comments"; "disgusted with their small-minded pettiness"
  2. [adj]  (informal terms) small and of little importance; "a fiddling sum of money"; "a footling gesture"; "our worries are lilliputian compared with those of countries that are at war"; "a little (or small) matter"; "Mickey Mouse regulations"; "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"
 
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 Synonyms: fiddling, footling, lilliputian, little, Mickey Mouse, narrow, narrow-minded, niggling, picayune, piddling, piffling, small-minded, trivial, unimportant
 

 

 

Webster's 1913 Dictionary
 
 Definition: 
\Pet"ty\, a. [Compar. {Pettier}; superl. {Pettiest}.] [OE.
petit, F. petit; probably of Celtic origin, and akin to E.
piece. Cf. {Petit}.]
Little; trifling; inconsiderable; also, inferior;
subordinate; as, a petty fault; a petty prince. --Denham.
      Like a petty god I walked about, admired of all.
                                               --Milton.
{Petty averages}. See under {Average}.
{Petty cash}, money expended or received in small items or
   amounts.
{Petty officer}, a subofficer in the navy, as a gunner, etc.,
   corresponding to a noncommissionned officer in the army.
Note: For petty constable, petty jury, petty larceny, petty
      treason, See {Petit}.
Syn: Little; diminutive; inconsiderable; inferior; trifling;
     trivial; unimportant; frivolous.
 
Thesaurus Terms
 
 Related Terms: abject, abominable, arrant, atrocious, authoritarian, base, beggarly, bickering, bigot, bigoted, borne, captious, casual, caviling, cheap, cheesy, choplogic, close, closed, constricted, contemptible, cramped, creedbound, crummy, cursory, deaf, deaf to reason, debased, deficient, degraded, depraved, depthless, despicable, dinky, dirty, disgusting, equivocatory, evasive, execrable, fanatical, few, flagrant, footling, foul, fulsome, grave, gross, grudging, hairsplitting, hedging, heinous, hidebound, illiberal, imperfect, impertinent, inadequate, incompetent, inconsequent, inconsequential, inconsiderable, inessential, inferior, insignificant, insufficient, insular, irrelevant, jerkwater, light, little, little-minded, logic-chopping, low, low-down, lumpen, maladroit, mangy, meager, mean, mean-minded, mean-spirited, measly, mediocre, Mickey Mouse, mingy, miniature, minor, miserable, miserly, monstrous, narrow, narrow-hearted, narrow-minded, narrow-souled, narrow-spirited, nearsighted, nefarious, negligible, niggardly, niggling, nit-picking, no great shakes, not comparable, not in it, nugatory, obnoxious, odious, of no account, one-horse, out of it, paltering, paltry, parochial, parsimonious, peanut, peddling, pettifogging, picayune, picayunish, piddling, piffling, pimping, poky, poor, provincial, punk, puny, purblind, pussyfooting, quibbling, rank, reptilian, scabby, scrubby, scruffy, scummy, scurvy, shabby, shallow, shoddy, shoestring, short, shortsighted, shuffling, skin-deep, slight, small, small-beer, small-minded, small-time, squalid, stingy, straitlaced, stuffy, superficial, tight, tight-fisted, tinhorn, tiny, trichoschistic, trifling, trinal, trivial, two-bit, two-by-four, twopenny-halfpenny, uncatholic, uncharitable, unchivalrous, unconsidered, ungenerous, unimportant, unliberal, unmentionable, unskillful, vile, wretched
 

 

 

 

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