different between trivial vs empty

English

Alternative forms

• triviall (obsolete)

Etymology

• From Latin trivi?lis (“appropriate to the street-corner, commonplace, vulgar”), from trivium (“place where three roads meet”). Compare trivium, trivia.
• From the distinction between trivium (“the lower division of the liberal arts; grammar, logic and rhetoric”) and quadrivium (“the higher division of the seven liberal arts in the Middle Ages, composed of geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, and music”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t??.vi.?l/

Adjective

trivial (comparative more trivial, superlative most trivial)

1. Ignorable; of little significance or value.
   • 1848, Thackeray, William Makepeace, Vanity Fair, Bantam Classics (1997), 16:

     "All which details, I have no doubt, Jones, who reads this book at his Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental."
2. Commonplace, ordinary.
   • 1842, Thomas De Quincey, Cicero (published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine)

     As a scholar, meantime, he was trivial, and incapable of labour.

3. Concerned with or involving trivia.
4. (taxonomy) Relating to or designating the name of a species; specific as opposed to generic.
5. (mathematics) Of, relating to, or being the simplest possible case.
6. (mathematics) Self-evident.
7. Pertaining to the trivium.
8. (philosophy) Indistinguishable in case of truth or falsity.

Synonyms

• (of little significance): ignorable, negligible, trifling

Antonyms

• nontrivial
• important
• significant
• radical
• fundamental

Derived terms

• trivia

Translations

Noun

trivial (plural trivials)

1. (obsolete) Any of the three liberal arts forming the trivium.
   • c. 1521, John Skelton, “Speke Parott”:

     Tryuyals, & quatryuyals, ?o ?ore now they appayre
     That Parrot the Popagay, hath pytye to beholde
     How the re?t of good lernyng, is roufled vp & trold

References

trivial in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.

Anagrams

• vitrail

Catalan

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Valencian) IPA^(key): /t?i.vi?al/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /t?i.bi?al/

Adjective

trivial (masculine and feminine plural trivials)

1. trivial

Further reading

• “trivial” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

French

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?i.vjal/
• Homophones: triviale, triviales

Adjective

trivial (feminine singular triviale, masculine plural triviaux, feminine plural triviales)

1. trivial (common, easy, obvious)
2. ordinary, mundane
3. colloquial (language)

Derived terms

• nom trivial

Further reading

• “trivial” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Anagrams

• livrait, vitrail

Galician

Adjective

trivial m or f (plural triviais)

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

Derived terms

• trivialidade
• trivialmente

German

Etymology

Borrowed from French trivial, from Latin trivi?lis (“common”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?ivi?a?l/
• Rhymes: -a?l

Adjective

trivial (comparative trivialer, superlative am trivialsten)

1. trivial (common, easy, obvious)

Declension

Related terms

• trivialisieren
• Trivialität

Further reading

• “trivial” in Duden online

Piedmontese

Adjective

trivial

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

Portuguese

Pronunciation

• (Brazil) IPA^(key): /t?ivi?aw/
• (Portugal) IPA^(key): /t?i?vja?/

Adjective

trivial m or f (plural triviais, comparable)

1. trivial

Derived terms

• trivialidade
• trivializar
• trivialmente

Further reading

• “trivial” in Dicionário Aberto based on Novo Diccionário da Língua Portuguesa de Cândido de Figueiredo, 1913

Romanian

Etymology

From French trivial.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tri.vi?al/

Adjective

trivial m or n (feminine singular trivial?, masculine plural triviali, feminine and neuter plural triviale)

1. This term needs a translation to English. Please help out and add a translation, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.

Declension

Derived terms

• trivialitate
• trivializa

Spanish

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /t?i?bjal/, [t??i???jal]
• Hyphenation: tri?vial

Adjective

trivial (plural triviales)

1. trivial

Derived terms

• trivialidad
• trivializar
• trivialmente

Further reading

• “trivial” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.

English

Etymology

From Middle English emty, amty, from Old English ?mti?, ?metti? (“vacant, empty, free, idle, unmarried”, literally “without must or obligation, leisurely”), from Proto-Germanic *uz- (“out”) + Proto-Germanic *m?tijô, *m?tô (“must, obligation, need”), *m?tiþô (“ability, accommodation”), from Proto-Indo-European *med- (“measure; to acquire, possess, be in command”). Related to Old English ?e?mti?ian (“to empty”), Old English ?metta (“leisure”), Old English m?tan (“must, might, have to”). More at mote, meet.

The interconsonantal excrescent p is a euphonic insertion dating from Middle English.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /??mpti/, /??mti/
• Hyphenation: emp?ty

Adjective

empty (comparative emptier, superlative emptiest)

1. Devoid of content; containing nothing or nobody; vacant.

   an empty purse; an empty jug; an empty stomach

   • 1949, George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Part Two, Chapter 1, [1]

     […] something in the little man's appearance suggested that he would be sufficiently attentive to his own comfort to choose the emptiest table.
2. (computing, programming, mathematics) Containing no elements (as of a string, array, or set), opposed to being null (having no valid value).
3. (obsolete) Free; clear; devoid; often with of.
   • c. 1594, William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost, Act V, Scene 2, [3]

     I shall find you empty of that fault,

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book XI, lines 614-7, [4]

     For that fair femal Troop thou sawst, that seemd / Of Goddesses, so blithe, so smooth, so gay, / Yet empty of all good wherein consists / Womans domestic honour and chief praise;

4. Having nothing to carry, emptyhanded; unburdened.
   • c. 1607, William Shakespeare, Timon of Athens, Act III, Scene 6, [5]

     I hope it remains not unkindly with your lordship that I returned you an empty messenger.

   • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Exodus 3:21, [6]

     And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty:

5. Destitute of effect, sincerity, or sense; said of language.

   empty words, or threats

   empty offer

   empty promises

   • 1697, Colley Cibber, Woman's Wit, Act V, page 190, [7]

     […] words are but empty thanks; my future conduct best will speak my gratitude.

6. Unable to satisfy; hollow; vain.

   empty pleasures

   • 1713, Alexander Pope, Windsor-Forest, lines 429-430, [8]

     Ev'n I more sweetly pass my careless days, / Pleas'd in the silent shade with empty praise;

7. Destitute of reality, or real existence; unsubstantial.

   empty dreams

8. Destitute of, or lacking, sense, knowledge, or courtesy.

   empty brains; an empty coxcomb

   • 1599, William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act II, Scene 7, [9]

     Art thou thus bolden'd, man, by thy distress? Or else a rude despiser of good manners, / That in civility thou seem'st so empty?

9. (of some female animals, especially cows and sheep) Not pregnant; not producing offspring when expected to do so during the breeding season.

   Empty cow rates have increased in recent years.

10. (obsolete) Producing nothing; unfruitful; said of a plant or tree.

    an empty vine

    • 1611, King James Version of the Bible, Genesis 42:27, [10]

      […] seven empty ears blasted with the east wind […]

Synonyms

• (devoid of content): unoccupied, clear, leer, toom, clean

Antonyms

• full
• (computing, mathematics): non-empty

Derived terms

Translations

Verb

empty (third-person singular simple present empties, present participle emptying, simple past and past participle emptied)

1. (transitive, ergative) To make empty; to void; to remove the contents of.

   to empty a well or a cistern

   The cinema emptied quickly after the end of the film.

   • The clouds […] empty themselves upon the earth.

2. (intransitive) Of a river, duct, etc: to drain or flow toward an ultimate destination.

Antonyms

• fill

Derived terms

• empty the clip
• empty the tank

Translations

Noun

empty (plural empties)

1. (usually plural) A container, especially a bottle, whose contents have been used up, leaving it empty.

Derived terms

• run on empty

Translations

References

Further reading

• empty in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• empty in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.