trifle
nounverbattested in dialogue
- //ˈtɹaɪfəl//
An English dessert made from a mixture of thick custard, fruit, sponge cake, jelly and whipped cream.
noun
- 1
An English dessert made from a mixture of thick custard, fruit, sponge cake, jelly and whipped cream.
It is interesting to watch the surface joviality on screen while racism is layered between courses like soggy trifles.
- 2
figurativeAnything that is of little importance or worth.
Trifles light as air / Are to the jealous confirmation strong / As proofs of holy writ.
Olde Chaucer doth of Topas tell, / Mad Rablais of Pantagruell, / A latter third of Dowsabell, / With such poore trifles playing:
[W]hen they had the Character and Honour of a VVoman at their Mercy, often times made it their Jest, and at least look’d upon it as a Trifle, and counted the Ruin of thoſe, they had had their VVill of, as a thing of no value.
‘And all about a rattle!’ said Alice, still hoping to make them a little ashamed of fighting for such a trifle.
- 3
figurativeAnything that is of little importance or worth. An insignificant amount of money.
A trifle, some eight-penny matter.
He told her of horses which he had bought for a trifle and sold for incredible sums […]
What’s eighty dollars? A trifle. An insignificant sum.
“It was bad of me then not to send the fifteen hundred dollars. I assumed it would be a trifle.” / “Well, until a few months ago it was a trifle.”
- 4
figurativeA very small amount (of something).
This Line leaves out […] Poplar and Black-vvall, vvhich are indeed contiguous, a Trifle of Ground excepted, and very populous.
There was a good deal of rustling and whispering behind the curtain, a trifle of lamp smoke, and an occasional giggle from Amy […]
“Take just a trifle of French mustard […]”
- 5
A particular kind of pewter.
- 6
Utensils made from this particular kind of pewter.
Etymology
From Middle English trifle, trifel, triful, trefle, truyfle, trufful, from Old French trufle (“mockery”), a byform of trufe, truffe (“deception”), of uncertain origin.
verb
- 1
To deal with something as if it were of little importance or worth.
You must not trifle with her affections.
[…] Do not believe / That, from the sense of all civility, / I thus would play and trifle with your reverence:
“Miss Bennet,” replied her ladyship, in an angry tone, “you ought to know, that I am not to be trifled with […]”
But a Judge may not trifle with the Law because the society is defective.
- 2
To act, speak, or otherwise behave with jest.
[…] playing and trifling are completely banished out of my mind […]
But he was terribly roused too and bound to go on; he wasn’t just trifling but intended something.
- 3
To inconsequentially toy with something.
Mr. Micawber, leaning back in his chair, trifled with his eye-glass and cast his eyes up at the ceiling […]
She sat in a café, trifling with her coffee spoon.
- 4
To squander or waste.
We trifle time: I pray thee, pursue sentence.
For an honest and sober man will rather make that woman his wife, whom he seeth employed continually about her business, than one who makes it her business to trifle away her own and others time.
As it was, he did nothing with much zeal, but sport; and his time was otherwise trifled away, without benefit from books or anything else.
You who have known neither sorrow nor pleasure; who have trifled your life away!
- 5
obsoleteTo make a trifle of, to make trivial.
[…] but this sore night / Hath trifled former knowings.
Forms
- plural
- trifles
- past tense
- trifled
- past participle
- trifled
- present participle
- trifling
- third person singular
- trifles
trifle · An English dessert made from a mixture of thick custard, fruit, sponge cake, jelly and whipped cream.
trigger · A finger-operated lever used to fire a gun.triggered · Having a trigger that reacts to some specific condition.trilling · The production of a trill sound.