Petty in a sentence as a noun

My fear is absolutely petty compared to the fear of being struck down by leukemia.

This all just feels really petty and whiney, particularly when you're already at work solving the problem.

Thus, it seems perfectly natural and reasonable for them to say, "OK, you make twice the salary we make yet you wanna be a petty criminal?

My father, a tremendously intelligent and charismatic man, was constantly lured by petty crime and get-rich-quick ideas, and wasted his life.

They are generally minor or petty crimes, at least that I have read about so far. It seems like an overzealous us of a tool for perfunctory government twerps to feel empowered and make a case for their continued existence...not at all beneficial in the short or long term

Petty in a sentence as an adjective

Yanukovych is a corrupt petty thief and rapist, turned politician, who has very close ties with Russia, and is stealing from the Ukrainian people through corruption.

Anyone who would be motivated to read the blog post had first read regretsy's side of the story, wherein Paypal comes across looking petty, immature, and unprofessional.

And the thing is that when you are in a new place, there is a large number of decisions to make about petty things like where is the nearest supermarket, where can I work out, how do I get proper internet etc. Whenever I've set up in a new place, my productivity suffers severely for a week or two. After that, I'm okay but if you travel a lot, that becomes a real price.

Yes, it is incredibly obnoxious when the press decides that their petty dramas ARE the news, but for the most part the staff of TechCrunch up to and including Arrington did a good job of keeping the conference 95% focused on startups.

If you want to track the death of the cultural vision of Silicon Valley -- the belief that some people, at least, can rise above petty human squabbling and competition and are legitimately working to better humanity -- look no further than this thread.

Petty definitions

noun

larceny of property having a value less than some amount (the amount varies by locale)

adjective

inferior in rank or status; "the junior faculty"; "a lowly corporal"; "petty officialdom"; "a subordinate functionary"

See also: junior-grade lower-ranking lowly secondary subaltern

adjective

(informal) small and of little importance; "a fiddling sum of money"; "a footling gesture"; "our worries are lilliputian compared with those of countries that are at war"; "a little (or small) matter"; "a dispute over niggling details"; "limited to petty enterprises"; "piffling efforts"; "giving a police officer a free meal may be against the law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction"

adjective

contemptibly narrow in outlook; "petty little comments"; "disgusted with their small-minded pettiness"

See also: small-minded