different between trifling vs puny

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

Etymology

From Middle French puisné. See puisne.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /pju?ni/
• Rhymes: -u?ni

Adjective

puny (comparative punier, superlative puniest)

1. Of inferior size, strength or significance; small, weak, ineffective.
   • Breezes laugh to scorn our puny speed.

Synonyms

• See also Thesaurus:scrawny

Translations

Noun

puny (plural punies)

1. (obsolete, Oxford University slang) A new pupil at a school etc.; a junior student.
2. (obsolete) A younger person.
   • 1642, Thomas Fuller, The Holy State and the Profane State

     who had rather others should make a ladder of his dead corpse to scale a city by it, than a bridge of him whilst alive for his punies to give him the go-by
3. (obsolete) A beginner, a novice.
4. (archaic) An inferior person; a subordinate.

Synonyms

• (new pupil): fresher, freshman, new bug, novi (Tonbridge School), shadow (Westminster School)
• (beginner): newb, rookie, tenderfoot; see also Thesaurus:beginner
• (subordinate): junior, underling, vassal

See also

• punny – relating to a pun

Catalan

Etymology

From Old Occitan, from Latin pugnus, from Proto-Indo-European *pu?nos, *pu?nos, from *pew?-, *peu?- (“prick, punch”).

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central, Valencian) IPA^(key): /?pu?/

Noun

puny m (plural punys)

1. fist

Related terms

• punyal
• punyeta

Further reading

• “puny” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “puny” in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana.
• “puny” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “puny” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.