1
as in small
not broad or open in views or opinions
a petty little town that was not ethnically diverse and very happy about the situation
Synonyms & Similar Words
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
2
as in nominal
so small or unimportant as to warrant little or no attention
obsessed over even petty problems
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Antonyms & Near Antonyms
Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of petty
When Trump announced recently that the program would be killed, there were celebratory announcements from petty despots around the world—in Belarus, Venezuela, Nicaragua, El Salvador.
—
Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 25 Feb. 2025
All of them had to do with petty personal stuff, attacks on people that attacked him, from pardoning the 9/11 – excuse me – the January 6th people who viciously beat police officers, all the way to renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
—NBC News, 23 Feb. 2025
The professor said the groups committed crimes, but their offenses were relatively petty by today’s standards: brawling and shakedowns of non-gang members for their bikes or lunch money.
—Libor Jany, Los Angeles Times, 22 Feb. 2025
With the wave of a hand—or, to be more precise, the tapping of a few overnight posts on social media—American political horizons are being remade in ways that are petty and absurd.
—Penny Abeywardena, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for petty
Jon Lee Anderson, The New Yorker, 25 Feb. 2025
All of them had to do with petty personal stuff, attacks on people that attacked him, from pardoning the 9/11 – excuse me – the January 6th people who viciously beat police officers, all the way to renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
—NBC News, 23 Feb. 2025
The professor said the groups committed crimes, but their offenses were relatively petty by today’s standards: brawling and shakedowns of non-gang members for their bikes or lunch money.
—Libor Jany, Los Angeles Times, 22 Feb. 2025
With the wave of a hand—or, to be more precise, the tapping of a few overnight posts on social media—American political horizons are being remade in ways that are petty and absurd.
—Penny Abeywardena, Forbes, 22 Feb. 2025
See All Example Sentences for petty
Recent Examples of Synonyms for petty
Adjective
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Beneath that ice, the light sensors recorded an astronomically small number of photons: an upper range of 0.04 micromoles per square meter per second, a number very close to the theoretical minimum amount of light that photosynthesis can run on.—
Asher Elbein,
WIRED,
2 Mar. 2025
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The foyer is often a small space, so a hall tree can be overbearing.—
Hallie Milstein,
Southern Living,
2 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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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
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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
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And yet conceding those messy parochial disputes to powers outside the university seems to some to represent no less of a crisis.—
Nathan Heller,
The New Yorker,
3 Mar. 2025
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Nation-states and their parochial identities would give way to an interdependent and cosmopolitan future.—
Foreign Affairs,
Foreign Affairs,
25 Feb. 2025
Adjective
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Sugarcane honey is a concentrated form of sugarcane juice that has a slight licorice taste and a touch of bitterness.—
Joseph V Micallef,
Forbes,
8 Mar. 2025
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The bill released Saturday will fund the government through Sept. 30 and provide a slight boost to defense spending while making a moderate cut to non-defense programs.—
Deirdre Walsh,
NPR,
8 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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Thirty narrow stairs lead to City Ballet’s bright, top floor rehearsal studio, with double ballet barres lining three walls, a floor-to-ceiling mirror, and an open ceiling with a treacherously low center beam that high jumping dancers have learned to avoid.—
Marcia Luttrell,
San Diego Union-Tribune,
2 Mar. 2025
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Others may include family offices that offer a narrower range of services.—
Francois Botha,
Forbes,
2 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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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
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And figuring out that amount was not a trivial task.—
Jayson Stewart,
IEEE Spectrum,
5 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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But despite Trump’s harsh tone, the prospect of higher tariffs will mean little to Moscow, given the tiny amounts of trade between the US and Russia.—
Christian Edwards,
CNN,
7 Mar. 2025
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The order’s vague framework has sparked concerns, particularly as Trump’s March 7, 2025, Crypto Summit is set to feature a narrow circle of industry elites, with little representation from diverse perspectives or consumer advocates.—
Tonya M. Evans,
Forbes,
7 Mar. 2025
Adjective
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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
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And yet the movie’s insularity feels trifling and empty.—
David Rooney,
The Hollywood Reporter,
17 Feb. 2024
Cite this Entry
“Petty.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/petty. Accessed 13 Mar. 2025.
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