insignificant
Americanadjective
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unimportant, trifling, or petty.
Omit the insignificant details.
-
too small to be important.
an insignificant sum.
-
of no consequence, influence, or distinction.
a minor, insignificant bureaucrat.
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without weight of character; contemptible.
an insignificant fellow.
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without meaning; meaningless.
insignificant sounds.
noun
adjective
-
having little or no importance; trifling
-
almost or relatively meaningless
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small or inadequate
an insignificant wage
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not distinctive in character, etc
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of insignificant
First recorded in 1620–30; in- 3 + significant
Explanation
When something is insignificant, it doesn't matter. The fact that your mom gets to school a half hour late becomes insignificant when she announces you're stopping for ice cream on the way home. The word signify, which is at the heart of insignificant, means "to mean." Significant means "meaningful." Add in- "not," and you have "not meaningful." A company can fire a worker from an insignificant job and still function. In a crisis, your feelings are insignificant; it is your actions that matter.
Vocabulary lists containing insignificant
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The Alchemist
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
And those encounters, however insignificant they seem, are part of how we learn to share space with other people.
From Salon ● Oct. 11, 2026
That amount may sound insignificant, but it represents an enormous quantity of material.
From Science Daily ● Oct. 10, 2026
"Anything you're able to provide, no matter how insignificant you think it might be, could help us."
From BBC ● Oct. 9, 2026
I’ve never been anywhere where I felt so small and insignificant next to another animal.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 8, 2026
In the middle of a war for survival, given the sheer volume of messages traded back and forth among Soviet embassies and the government in Moscow, making multiple copies must have seemed an insignificant decision.
From "Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia" by Marc Favreau
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
