different between trifle vs dash

English

Etymology

From Middle English trifle, trifel, triful, trefle, truyfle, trufful, from Old French trufle (“mockery”), a byform of trufe, truffe (“deception”), of uncertain origin.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?a?f?l/
• Rhymes: -a?f?l
• Hyphenation: tri?fle

Noun

trifle (countable and uncountable, plural trifles)

1. An English dessert made from a mixture of thick custard, fruit, sponge cake, jelly and whipped cream.

   Coordinate terms: tiramisu, bread pudding

2. Anything that is of little importance or worth.

   Synonyms: bagatelle, minor detail, whiffle; see also Thesaurus:trifle

   • c. 1604, William Shakespeare, Othello, Act III, Scene 3,^[1]

     Trifles light as air / Are to the jealous confirmation strong / As proofs of holy writ.

   • 1631, Michael Drayton, Nimphidia the Court of Fayrie in The Battaile of Agincourt, London: William Lee, p. 168,^[2]

     Olde Chaucer doth of Topas tell,

     Mad Rablais of Pantagruell,

     A latter third of Dowsabell,

     With such poore trifles playing:

   • 1722, Daniel Defoe, The fortunes and misfortunes of the famous Moll Flanders, London, p. 34,^[3]

     […] when they had the Character and Honour of a Woman at their Mercy, often times made it their Jest, and at least look’d upon it as a Trifle, and counted the Ruin of those, they had had their Will of, as a thing of no value.

   • 1871, Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass, Chapter 4,^[4]

     ‘And all about a rattle!’ said Alice, still hoping to make them a little ashamed of fighting for such a trifle.

   1. An insignificant amount of money.
      • c. 1597, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 1, Act III, Scene 3,^[5]

        A trifle, some eight-penny matter.

      • 1818, Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey, Chapter 9,^[6]

        He told her of horses which he had bought for a trifle and sold for incredible sums […]

      • 1900, Joseph Conrad, Lord Jim, Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood, Chapter 30, p. 311,^[7]

        What’s eighty dollars? A trifle. An insignificant sum.

      • 1975, Saul Bellow, Humboldt’s Gift, New York: Avon, 1976, p. 462,^[8]

        “It was bad of me then not to send the fifteen hundred dollars. I assumed it would be a trifle.”

        “Well, until a few months ago it was a trifle.”

3. A very small amount (of something).

   Synonyms: smidgen; see also Thesaurus:modicum

   • 1742, Daniel Defoe, A tour thro’ the whole island of Great Britain, London: J. Osborn et al., Volume 2, Letter II. Containing A Description of the City of London, p. 90, footnote,^[9]

     This Line leaves out […] Poplar and Black-wall, which are indeed contiguous, a Trifle of Ground excepted, and very populous.

   • 1868, Louisa May Alcott, Little Women, Part 1, Chapter 2,^[10]

     There was a good deal of rustling and whispering behind the curtain, a trifle of lamp smoke, and an occasional giggle from Amy […]

   • 1932, Graham Greene, Stamboul Strain, London: Heinemann, Part 4, p. 180,^[11]

     “Take just a trifle of French mustard […] ”

4. A particular kind of pewter.
5. (uncountable) Utensils made from this particular kind of pewter.

Derived terms

• a trifle

Translations

Verb

trifle (third-person singular simple present trifles, present participle trifling, simple past and past participle trifled)

1. (intransitive) To deal with something as if it were of little importance or worth.

   You must not trifle with her affections.

   • c. 1604, William Shakespeare, Othello, Act I, Scene 1,^[12]

     […] Do not believe

     That, from the sense of all civility,

     I thus would play and trifle with your reverence:

   • 1813, Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, Chapter 56,^[13]

     “Miss Bennet,” replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, “you ought to know, that I am not to be trifled with […] ”

   • 1948, Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country, Penguin, 1958, Book 2, Chapter 11, p. 171,^[14]

     But a Judge may not trifle with the Law because the society is defective.

2. (intransitive) To act, speak, or otherwise behave with jest.
   • 1847, Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights, Chapter 27,^[15]

     […] playing and trifling are completely banished out of my mind […]

   • 1953, Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March, New York: Viking, 1960, Chapter 19, p. 405,^[16]

     But he was terribly roused too and bound to go on; he wasn’t just trifling but intended something.

3. (intransitive) To inconsequentially toy with something.
   • 1850, Charles Dickens, David Copperfield, Chapter 28,^[17]

     Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair, trifled with his eye-glass and cast his eyes up at the ceiling […]

   • 1965, Muriel Spark, The Mandelbaum Gate, New York: Fawcett, 1967, Part 1, Chapter 6, p. 151,^[18]

     She sat in a café, trifling with her coffee spoon.

4. (transitive) To squander or waste.
   • c. 1596, William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene 1,^[19]

     We trifle time: I pray thee, pursue sentence.

   • 1677, Hannah Woolley, The Compleat Servant-Maid, London: T. Passinger, p. 62,^[20]

     For an honest and sober man will rather make that woman his wife, whom he seeth employed continually about her business, than one who makes it her business to trifle away her own and others time.

   • 1818, Jane Austen, Persuasion, Chapter 6,^[21]

     As it was, he did nothing with much zeal, but sport; and his time was otherwise trifled away, without benefit from books or anything else.

   • 1925, Virginia Woolf, Mrs Dalloway, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1985, p. 189,^[22]

     You who have known neither sorrow nor pleasure; who have trifled your life away!

5. (transitive, obsolete) To make a trifle of, to make trivial.
   • c. 1605, William Shakespeare, Macbeth, Act II, Scene 4,^[23]

     […] but this sore night

     Hath trifled former knowings.

Synonyms

• (toy with): fiddle
• (squander): fritter, wanton

Translations

See also

• trifle on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• filter, filtre, firtle, lifter, relift

Portuguese

Noun

trifle m (plural trifles)

1. trifle (English dessert)

English

Etymology

From Middle English daschen, dassen, from Danish daske (“to slap, strike”), related to Swedish daska (“to smack, slap, spank”), of obscure origin. Compare German tatschen (“to grope, paw”), Old English dw?s?an (“to quell, put out, destroy, extinguish”). See also adwesch, dush.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /dæ?/
• Rhymes: -æ?

Noun

dash (plural dashes)

1. (typography) Any of the following symbols: ? (figure dash), – (en dash), — (em dash), or ? (horizontal bar).
   1. (computing) A hyphen or minus sign.
2. (by extension) The longer of the two symbols of Morse code.
3. A short run, flight.

4. A rushing or violent onset.
5. Violent strike; a whack.

6. A small quantity of a liquid substance etc.; less than 1/8 of a teaspoon.

   Add a dash of vinegar.

7. (figuratively, by extension) A slight admixture.

   There is a dash of craziness in his personality.

8. Ostentatious vigor.

   Aren't we full of dash this morning?

9. A dashboard.
   • 1955, Rex Stout, "The Next Witness", in Three Witnesses, October 1994 Bantam edition, ?ISBN, page 31:

     The dash clock said 2:38 when […] I turned off a dirt road […] .

10. (Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia) A bribe or gratuity; a gift.
    • 1992, George B. N. Ayittey, Africa betrayed (page 44)

      The traditional practice of offering gifts or "dash" to chiefs has often been misinterpreted by scholars to provide a cultural explanation for the pervasive incidence of bribery and corruption in modern Africa.

    • 2006, Adiele Eberechukwu Afigbo, The Abolition of the Slave Trade in Southeastern Nigeria, 1885-1950 (page 99)

      Writing in 1924 on a similar situation in Ugep, the political officer, Mr. S. T. Harvey noted: "In the old days there was no specified dowry but merely dashes given to the father-in-law […]

    • 2008, Lizzie Williams, Nigeria: The Bradt Travel Guide (page 84)

      The only other times you'll be asked for a dash is from beggars.

11. (dated, euphemistic) A stand-in for a censored word, like "Devil" or "damn". (Compare deuce.)
    • 1853, William Makepeace Thackeray, The Newcomes, Chapter VI, serialized in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, (VIII, no. 43, Dec 1853) p. 118

      Sir Thomas looks as if to ask what the dash is that to you! but wanting still to go to India again, and knowing how strong the Newcomes are in Leadenhall Street, he thinks it necessary to be civil to the young cub, and swallows his pride once more into his waistband.

      Comment: Some editions leave this passage out. Of those that include it, some change the 'you!' to 'you?'.

    • 1884, Lord Robert Gower, My Reminiscences, reprinted in "The Evening Lamp", The Christian Union, (29) 22, (May 29, 1884) p. 524

      Who the dash is this person whom none of us know? and what the dash does he do here?

Hypernyms

• punctuation mark

Hyponyms

• See also Thesaurus:dash

Derived terms

• dashing
• (typography): em dash, en dash
• (dashboard): dashcam, dash cam

Translations

See also

Punctuation

Verb

dash (third-person singular simple present dashes, present participle dashing, simple past and past participle dashed)

1. (intransitive) To run quickly or for a short distance.
2. (intransitive, informal) To leave or depart.

   I have to dash now. See you soon.

3. (transitive) To destroy by striking (against).

   He dashed the bottle against the bar and turned about to fight.

   • 1897, Bram Stoker, Dracula Chapter 21

     "`Silence! If you make a sound I shall take him and dash his brains out before your very eyes.'

   • 1912: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Tarzan of the Apes, Chapter 4

     Kala was the youngest mate of a male called Tublat, meaning broken nose, and the child she had seen dashed to death was her first; for she was but nine or ten years old.

4. (transitive) To throw violently.

   The man was dashed from the vehicle during the accident.

   • If you dash a stone against a stone in the bottom of the water, it maketh a sound.

5. (transitive, intransitive, sometimes figuratively) To sprinkle; to splatter.

   • On each hand the gushing waters play, / And down the rough cascade white-dashing fall.

   • The very source and fount of day / Is dash'd with wandering isles of night.
6. (transitive, dated) To mix, reduce, or adulterate, by throwing in something of an inferior quality.

   to dash wine with water

7. (transitive, of hopes or dreams) To ruin; to destroy.

   Her hopes were dashed when she saw the damage.
8. (transitive) To dishearten; to sadden.

   Her thoughts were dashed to melancholy.

9. (transitive) To complete hastily, usually with down or off.

   He dashed down his eggs, she dashed off her homework

10. (transitive) To draw or write quickly; jot.
    • 1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room Chapter 1

      "Scarborough," Mrs. Flanders wrote on the envelope, and dashed a bold line beneath; it was her native town; the hub of the universe.

    • 2003, Robert Andrews, A Murder of Promise (page 198)

      Going out the door, he grabbed a windbreaker and dashed a note to his father and left it on the entry table.

Derived terms

• dash off
• gas and dash

Translations

Interjection

dash

1. (euphemistic) Damn!

Translations

See also

• hyphen
• minus sign

Anagrams

• ADHs, SAHD, Sadh, dahs, shad

Albanian

Etymology

Disputed. Potentially from Proto-Albanian *dauša, from Proto-Indo-European *d?eusóm (compare English deer, Lithuanian da?sos (“upper air; heaven”)). Alternatively from Proto-Albanian *dalša, from Proto-Indo-European *d?eh?-l- (compare Ossetian ?????? (dalis?, “young lamb”)).

Noun

dash m (indefinite plural desh, definite singular dashi, definite plural deshtë)

1. ram (male sheep)

Derived terms

• Dash
• Dashnor

References

Norwegian Bokmål

Etymology

From English dash

Noun

dash m (definite singular dashen, indefinite plural dasher, definite plural dashene)

1. a dash (small amount)
2. short for dashbord.

References

• “dash” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

Norwegian Nynorsk

Etymology

From English dash

Noun

dash m (definite singular dashen, indefinite plural dashar, definite plural dashane)

1. a dash (small amount)
2. short for dashbord.

References

• “dash” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Ojibwe

Alternative forms

• idash
• -sh

Adverb

dash

1. and, and then, then

2. but

Usage notes

dash comes in the second position in a clause, indicating that one thing happened after another. It can also have a contrastive meaning and then may be translated with but.

Derived terms

• aaniin dash (“why?”)
• mii dash (“and then”)

See also

• aanawi (“although, but”)
• apii (“then”)
• gaye (“as for, also”)
• miinawaa (“and again”)

References

• The Ojibwe People's Dictionary https://ojibwe.lib.umn.edu/main-entry/dash-adv-conj