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PETTY
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Irregular inflected forms: pettier , pettiest
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Larceny of property having a value less than some amount (the amount varies by locale)
Synonyms:
petit larceny; petty; petty larceny
Classified under:
Nouns denoting acts or actions
Hypernyms ("petty" is a kind of...):
larceny; stealing; theft; thievery; thieving (the act of taking something from someone unlawfully)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Contemptibly narrow in outlook
Example:
disgusted with their small-minded pettiness
Synonyms:
petty; small-minded
Classified under:
Similar:
narrow; narrow-minded (lacking tolerance or flexibility or breadth of view)
Derivation:
pettiness (narrowness of mind or ideas or views)
Sense 2
Meaning:
(informal) small and of little importance
Example:
giving a police officer a free meal may be against the law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction
Synonyms:
fiddling; footling; lilliputian; little; niggling; petty; picayune; piddling; piffling; trivial
Classified under:
Similar:
unimportant (not important)
Domain usage:
colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)
Derivation:
pettiness (lack of generosity in trifling matters)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Inferior in rank or status
Example:
a subordinate functionary
Synonyms:
junior-grade; lower-ranking; lowly; petty; secondary; subaltern
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
junior (younger; lower in rank; shorter in length of tenure or service)
Derivation:
pettiness (the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous)
Context examples:
She wished very much to have the subject continued, though she did not chuse to join in it herself; but nothing more of it was said, and for the first time in her life, she thought Mrs. Jennings deficient either in curiosity after petty information, or in a disposition to communicate it.
(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)
Give me back my wife, give me back my family, substitute Micawber for the petty wretch who walks about in the boots at present on my feet, and call upon me to swallow a sword tomorrow, and I'll do it.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Then take my word for it,—I am not a villain: you are not to suppose that—not to attribute to me any such bad eminence; but, owing, I verily believe, rather to circumstances than to my natural bent, I am a trite commonplace sinner, hackneyed in all the poor petty dissipations with which the rich and worthless try to put on life.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I have seen him a score of times, at table, insulting this hunter or that, with cool and level eyes and, withal, a certain air of interest, pondering their actions or replies or petty rages with a curiosity almost laughable to me who stood onlooker and who understood.
(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)
Never mind your usual petty puzzles of the police-court.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Petty thefts, wanton assaults, purposeless outrage—to the man who held the clue all could be worked into one connected whole.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
It is a petty feeling, no doubt, but it hurts my pride.
(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
At table he failed to hear the conversation about petty and ignoble things, his eager mind seeking out and following cause and effect in everything before him.
(Martin Eden, by Jack London)
She could not fly in the face of the gods who permitted him, but that did not prevent her from making life miserable for him in petty ways.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
The busts! You never can get those busts out of your head. After all, that is nothing; petty larceny, six months at the most.
(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
