small fry
Americannoun
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a child: He's a small fry with a big personality.
Here's a treat for the small fry.
He's a small fry with a big personality.
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an unimportant person or object.
Her fancy parties were closed to the small fry.
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a small or young fish.
plural noun
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people or things regarded as unimportant
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young children
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young or small fishes
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Young children, as in This show is not suitable for small fry .
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Persons of little importance or influence, as in She wasn't about to invite the Washington small fry to the reception . Both usages allude to fry in the sense of “young or small fish.” [Late 1800s]
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of small fry
First recorded in 1895–1900; fry 2
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.
We are small fry by most standards, but I can imagine state lawmakers looking at us as easy pickings.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 4, 2026
Several clients raised the question of whether this bet was being redefined to benefit “whales,” or big-money gamblers, at the expense of the small fry.
From MarketWatch ● Jan. 5, 2026
"There's big and serious history here, wars which changed the course of history on a continent. Put it against that, it's small fry," Mr Hare remarked.
From BBC ● Mar. 18, 2025
Some passages one might almost call psychedelic if that word didn’t seem inappropriate to small fry.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 8, 2024
In those bygone days a bishop visited the Milagro parish about once every five years, and when the bishop came he confirmed all the small fry in town.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
Definitions 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.
