(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"
Used in a Sentence
trivial
How to use trivial in a sentence. Example sentences and definitions for trivial.
Editorial note
And yet, it is trivial to connect a phone number to its owner.
Examples13
Definitions3
Parts of speech1
Quick take
(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"
Meaning at a glance
The clearest senses and uses of trivial gathered in one view.
of little substance or significance; "a few superficial editorial changes"; "only trivial objections"
concerned with trivialities; "a trivial young woman"; "a trivial mind"
Definitions
Core meanings and parts of speech for trivial.
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
of little substance or significance; "a few superficial editorial changes"; "only trivial objections"
See also: superficial
adjective
concerned with trivialities; "a trivial young woman"; "a trivial mind"
Example sentences
And yet, it is trivial to connect a phone number to its owner.
Getting a TEDx license is pretty trivial and there is no real oversight on quality.
Compare to creating a .deb properly, which is, ahem, non-trivial.
I'd have needed another decade of non-trivial training before I'd have been able to get a job as a doctor.
A non-trivial companion project like that seems great for naturally guiding a language!
Not only does Microsoft have useless/trivial patents, but they shouldn't have gotten them in the first place because of prior art. Plus, with those patents they get to claim a license fee as large as the license fee for their whole OS - WP7.
[1]Finally, if you did not apply the goto fail update a few days ago, it's trivial to break that TLS channel and also "misconfigure" those keys.
Assuming the FP support scales even a fraction as well, this should be enough to practically verify pretty non-trivial functions!
The reason why the Mercator projection was popular for so long is that its angles correspond to compass points and you navigate by a trivial algorithm:1.
Huxley feared we would become a trivial culture, preoccupied with some equivalent of the feelies, the orgy porgy, and the centrifugal bumblepuppy.
Any shim that collects that information still has non-trivial work stuffing it into a buffer, and the overhead of drawing anything with more than a few hundred triangles soon becomes absurd.
The problem with modern software patents is that too many are too easily granted over trivial "innovations" and this has given vast incentives to those who would package them into shakedown licensing ventures and thereby gum things up for true innovators.
Moreover, the strings that appear in Kima's term sheet are not trivial: the valuation is based on no larger than a 5% equity pool; you give up a board seat; you give Kima a broad veto power on many of your future actions relating to fundraising and other important company matters; you agree to restrictions on how the value is shared in case you are acquired.
Frequently asked questions
Short answers drawn from the clearest meanings and examples for this word.
How do you use trivial in a sentence?
And yet, it is trivial to connect a phone number to its owner.
What does trivial mean?
(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"
What part of speech is trivial?
trivial is commonly used as adjective.