piffling 1 of 2

piffling

2 of 2

verb

present participle of piffle

Examples Sentences

Recent Examples of Synonyms for piffling
Adjective
  • While some of the nominees fall far afield from the norms—Hegseth, Gabbard, and RFK Jr. are the marquee names in that cohort, for sure—the bulk will face only nominal opposition from Democrats.
    Philip Elliott, TIME, 8 Jan. 2025
  • Of course, all the good deeds in the world can’t buy your way into heaven, but as a nominal Catholic, Biden may have been persuaded by the Pope to commute the sentences.
    Chris Roemer, Baltimore Sun, 2 Jan. 2025
Adjective
  • That slight warming trend is expected to continue Friday, when high temperatures reach the upper 30s, with lows in the upper teens.
    Matt Hubbard, Baltimore Sun, 19 Jan. 2025
  • The snow started falling Sunday afternoon, with a slight mix of hail.
    Joseph Wilkinson, New York Daily News, 19 Jan. 2025
Adjective
  • But the smoke is still rising, and petty partisanship is a distraction and disservice at the moment, given all that’s been lost, and all the hard work of moving forward.
    Steve Lopez, Los Angeles Times, 10 Jan. 2025
  • In an era of steadily declining trust in media, the dry formalities of a legal template provide not only an imprimatur of institutional credibility, but also the freedom to go into extreme amounts of detail without seeming petty, tedious or self-indulgent.
    Eleanor Hawkins, Axios, 9 Jan. 2025
Adjective
  • Then, the pandemic reduced the schedule to 60 games and Eddie got a piddling 37%.
    Star Tribune, Star Tribune, 3 Dec. 2020
  • Millions of additional claims are expected to stream in from around the country over the coming weeks, while hiring remains piddling.
    Patricia Cohen, New York Times, 23 Apr. 2020
Adjective
  • And yet the movie’s insularity feels trifling and empty.
    David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Feb. 2024
  • The cost to find these answers, even in the near term, is relatively trifling.
    Phil Plait, Scientific American, 30 Oct. 2023
Adjective
  • For what’s known as PM2.5 pollution, or tiny inhalable particles of smoke and dust, a PurpleAir sensor located south of Los Angeles International Airport simultaneously returned on Monday an air quality index of 28 on AirNow’s website, 20 on WatchDuty, and 5 on PurpleAir’s official page.
    Paresh Dave, WIRED, 16 Jan. 2025
  • Despite their immense size, these gentle giants are filter feeders, primarily consuming plankton, small fish, and other tiny organisms by swimming with their mouths open to filter food from the water.
    Melissa Cristina Marquez, Forbes, 16 Jan. 2025
Adjective
  • Any defection over the most trivial procedural or legislative matters could block the party's agenda.
    G. Elliott Morris, ABC News, 7 Jan. 2025
  • For investors, this means that meaningful financial updates from companies will be accompanied by mountains of trivial environmental data.
    Stone Washington, National Review, 31 Dec. 2024
Adjective
  • That pipeline, now at the heart of the NS2 dispute, still carries Russian gas to Germany, yielding between $2 billion and $3 billion in annual transit fees for Ukraine – not an inconsiderable amount for an economy whose total gross domestic product was $154 billion in 2020.
    Fred Weir, The Christian Science Monitor, 5 Aug. 2021
  • For even very good students who can afford the not inconsiderable tuition, deciding which campuses to list on the UC application — each costs $70 — is less about personal preference and more about figuring out which one offers any hope of acceptance.
    Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Times, 14 Apr. 2021
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Thesaurus Entries Near piffling

Cite this Entry

“Piffling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/piffling. Accessed 22 Jan. 2025.

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