different between trivial vs measly

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

measle (“singular of measles”) +? -y; the word measle is either from Middle Dutch masel (“a blister filled with blood; a pustule, a skin blemish”), or Middle Low German masel (“a red skin blemish”), from Proto-Germanic *masuraz (“a knot or scar in wood; a knarl”), from *mas-, *m?s- (“a spot; a sore; a scar”), from Proto-Indo-European *mos- (“a skin sore”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?mi?zli/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?mizli/
• Hyphenation: meas?ly

Adjective

measly (comparative measlier, superlative measliest)

1. Particularly of pigs or pork: infected with larval tapeworms or trichinae (parasitic roundworms). [from late 16th c.]
   • 1847, William Youatt, The Pig: A Treatise on the Breeds, Management, Feeding, and Medical Treatment, of Swine; with Directions for Salting Pork, and Curing Bacon and Hams, page 113:

     Then take five or six apples, pick out the cores and fill up the holes thus made with flour of brimstone; stop up the holes and cast in the apples to the measly hog.

2. Of a person: infected with measles.
   • 1902, The Epworth Herald

     A measly boy, he looked like a tramp, probably one of the street boys from the village, just walked up here and made himself at home, and when I told him to leave, he wouldn't.

3. (figuratively, informal) Small (especially contemptibly small) in amount. [from mid 19th c.]

   Synonyms: miserable, paltry, trifling

   • 2004, Richard Rizun, Ora, Trafford Publishing (?ISBN)

     The visiting tourists eagerly forked over a measly two dollars per group to their guides as payment for their services. This amount was measly sum to the givers, but a princely sum to the takers.

   • 2010, Marylee Daniel Mitcham, Blacktime Song by Rosalie Wolfe, Strategic Book Publishing (?ISBN), page 127:

     So it wasn't a hotel, as I said in my novel, just a measly motel. But to me it was like the First measly motel, and I remember laughing about the things I was saying straight from my unconscious to both his and God's ear.

Translations

References

• “measly”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–present.

Anagrams

• Lameys, Leamys, Lemays, Maleys, Mayles, Mealys, amyles, samely, yealms