as in nominal
so small or unimportant as to warrant little or no attention
raised one final, piddling objection to the plan
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Recent Examples of piddling
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
What’s particularly baffling is that Syria now produces a piddling amount of oil—about as much as Utah.
—Robin Wright, The New Yorker, 30 Oct. 2019
That will make the current economic uncertainty look piddling.
—Daniel W. Drezner, Twin Cities, 15 Aug. 2019
In the battle for mind share, in the Trumpian quest to be part of every conversation, the Pixel far outweighs its piddling sales.
—Vlad Savov, The Verge, 16 Oct. 2018
Of those, only four rather piddling victories went the liberals’ way.
—The Economist, 30 June 2018
Learning about other runners' struggles and triumphs helps put my piddling run into a bigger narrative, often allowing me to see myself differently within another story.
—Alli Harvey, Anchorage Daily News, 21 June 2018
How to: Improve the Wi-Fi reception in your home
The most-improved was Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which went from a piddling 2.68 Mbps download speed in 2017 to 59.62 Mbps this year.
—Dwight Silverman, Houston Chronicle, 12 June 2018
Adjective
Then, the pandemic reduced the schedule to 60 games and Eddie got a piddling 37%.
—Recent Examples of Synonyms for piddling
Adjective
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Austin Public trains those producers, who, for a nominal fee, gain access to state-of-the-art equipment, studio space and content distribution for their own work.—
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Academic users will be able to access the platform for a nominal fee, while biotech and pharmaceutical companies are charged an annual subscription, which gives them the right to store their data securely, as well as a relatively low per-use charge.—
Verb
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The aging Airy had devoted his observatory to stellar measurements that now produced trifling improvements to navigation.—
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But those trifling problems aren’t for Jane to worry about.—
Adjective
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The ice punishes the slightest miscalculations, demands the sharpest of focus.—
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One report found there may be a slight benefit to moderate drinking, while the other concluded that even one drink a day was linked to a wide range of harms.—
Verb
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The last two seasons have proven that the team starts off slow, which ends up messing their chances of making the playoffs.—
Adjective
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At the previous World Cup in 2022, hosted by tiny Qatar, all of England’s games were in Doha or just outside that city.—
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Nanotubes are ultra-small cylindrical structures, so tiny that thousands could fit across the width of a human hair.—
Adjective
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Angel went for a respectful middle-of-the-road jab — complimenting her parenting and resilience, but maligning her for being petty.—
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Who is not petty or vindictive.—
Adjective
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There were 70,000 hospitalizations a year, which was not trivial, and virtually eliminating them was one of the major successes for vaccines in this country.—
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If that seems trivial, your at-home priorities may require review.—
Verb
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Early reports indicate that kids are fooling the age-recognition software with sophisticated techniques such as drawing on facial hair and substituting celebrity photos for their own.—
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Anyone who thinks that this is an issue that could have been solved by nominating a couple more Spider-Man movies is fooling themselves.—
Cite this Entry
“Piddling.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/piddling. Accessed 13 Jan. 2026.
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