different between trifling vs fleabite

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?a?fli?/

Adjective

trifling (comparative more trifling, superlative most trifling)

1. Trivial, or of little importance.
   • 2005, Plato, Sophist. Translation by Lesley Brown. 234a.

     […] it doesn't take him long to make any of them, and he sells them for some trifling sum of money.

2. Idle or frivolous.
3. (African-American Vernacular) Of suspicious character, typically secretive or deceitful; shady.
   • 2001, Glenda Howard, Cita's World

     My hand was aching to slap that silly heifer. I told her to take her trifling ass down to Burger King and get herself a job flipping burgers […]

Synonyms

• trivial
• inconsequential
• petty
• See also Thesaurus:insignificant

Related terms

• trifle

Translations

Noun

trifling (plural triflings)

1. The act of one who trifles; frivolous behaviour.
   • 1845, George Croly, Samuel Warren, Marston, or the Memoirs of a Statesman

     He writes on the principle, of course, that in one's dotage we are privileged to return to the triflings of our infancy, and that Downing Street cannot be better employed in these days than as a chapel of ease to Eton.

Translations

Verb

trifling

1. present participle of trifle

Anagrams

• filtring, flirting

English

Alternative forms

• flea-bite

Etymology

From flea +? bite.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?fli?b??t/

Noun

fleabite (plural fleabites)

1. The bite of a flea, or the mark caused by such a bite.
2. Something which causes only trifling irritation; a minor inconvenience.
   • 1919, Saki, ‘The Disappearance of Crispina Umberleigh’, The Toys of Peace, Penguin 2000 (Complete Short Stories), p. 408:

     He was a rich man, and the £2,000 a year, though not exactly a fleabite, did not seem an extravagant price to pay for the boarding-out of Crispina.

Translations