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
-
Ever since, however, TCU has started three wings alongside Van Lith and Sedona Prince, once again making the fifth-year senior the nominal point guard.—
Sabreena Merchant,
The Athletic,
20 Jan. 2025
-
The object of their largesse was an obscure nonprofit called the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation which, for the better part of two decades, had quietly helped firefighters by raising funds for equipment — often things as nominal as gloves and flashlights — not covered in the city budget.—
David Wharton,
Los Angeles Times,
20 Jan. 2025
Adjective
-
That slight warming trend is expected to continue Friday, when high temperatures reach the upper 30s, with lows in the upper teens.—
Matt Hubbard,
Baltimore Sun,
19 Jan. 2025
-
The snow started falling Sunday afternoon, with a slight mix of hail.—
Joseph Wilkinson,
New York Daily News,
19 Jan. 2025
Adjective
-
Despite their immense size, these gentle giants are filter feeders, primarily consuming plankton, small fish, and other tiny organisms by swimming with their mouths open to filter food from the water.—
Melissa Cristina Marquez,
Forbes,
16 Jan. 2025
-
Those in-the-moment progressions can feel tiny and barely perceptible from one session to the next.—
Cindy Kuzma,
SELF,
16 Jan. 2025
Adjective
-
But the smoke is still rising, and petty partisanship is a distraction and disservice at the moment, given all that’s been lost, and all the hard work of moving forward.—
Steve Lopez,
Los Angeles Times,
10 Jan. 2025
-
In an era of steadily declining trust in media, the dry formalities of a legal template provide not only an imprimatur of institutional credibility, but also the freedom to go into extreme amounts of detail without seeming petty, tedious or self-indulgent.—
Eleanor Hawkins,
Axios,
9 Jan. 2025
Adjective
-
Out of a trivial tension, an intimate and unsettling face-to-face confrontation suddenly arises.—
Zac Ntim,
Deadline,
16 Jan. 2025
-
Compared with all that has been lost here in L.A., the devastation of Runyon Canyon and other hiking trails is trivial.—
Andrew Moseman,
The Atlantic,
15 Jan. 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
-
And yet the movie’s insularity feels trifling and empty.—
David Rooney,
The Hollywood Reporter,
17 Feb. 2024
-
The cost to find these answers, even in the near term, is relatively trifling.—
Phil Plait,
Scientific American,
30 Oct. 2023
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
Thesaurus Entries Near piddling
Cite this Entry
“Piddling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/piddling. Accessed 27 Jan. 2025.
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