piddling

The Tigers threw off two decades of middling-to-piddling seasons and made folk heroes out of Pudge Rodríguez and Magglio Ordóñez, with right-handed phenom Justin Verlander representing the future.

Millions of other Americans will lament they live in cities with strapped budgets that throw piddling BBQs and hand out sparklers.

These are the types of scenarios that would make the current catastrophe in Sendai look piddling by comparison.

Still, I have never forgotten that in my youth, I thought the difference between life and death was piddling.