piddling

[pid-ling]

adjective

1. amounting to very little; trifling; negligible.

   a piddling sum of money.

   Synonyms: picayune, paltry, insignificant, trivial

piddling

/ ˈpɪdlɪŋ /

adjective

1. informal,  petty; trifling; trivial

Other Word Forms

• piddlingly adverb

Word History and Origins

Origin of piddling¹

First recorded in 1550–60; piddle + -ing ²

Example Sentences

It’s exciting as spectacle, but on the substance every element of the preceding sentence is piddling.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

There’s even a humbling sequence set in the real Carrara, where, against the quarry’s raw splendor, the mighty modern excavators look as piddling as Hot Wheels on the basement stairs.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

Yet on a comparative basis, they are piddling.

Read more on New York Times

Mencken points out that he’s not especially successful, that his business is “petty and piddling,” and to think of him as a leader is completely misguided.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

It also would have reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a piddling afterthought; Nolan treats them instead as a profound absence, an indictment by silence.

Read more on Los Angeles Times