paltry

England's pace bowlers were outstanding in dismissing Sri Lanka for a paltry 124, then the home side chased the target in 9.4 overs.

From BBC ● Sep. 19, 2026

For the paltry sum of $44 million, thereabouts, we acquired the oldest and most prestigious talent agency in town.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 15, 2026

Taken together, it’s hard to imagine the event will draw much beyond a paltry audience.

From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2026

The Bureau of Labor Statistics previously had reported that a paltry 273,000 new jobs were created between March 2025 and March 2026.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 28, 2026

The sales column for the last few months held paltry sums for curios and a few smaller pieces of furniture.

From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu

So far, milder summer temperatures have spared him from the prospect of even paltrier yields.

From Washington Times ● Aug. 2, 2014

Ah! what a contrast there is between the languid way in which Christian men pursue what the Bible designates their 'calling' and that in which men with far paltrier aims pursue theirs!

From Expositions of Holy Scripture Second Corinthians, Galatians, and Philippians Chapters I to End. Colossians, Thessalonians, and First Timothy. by Alexander Maclaren

The design is the same in both, the proportions also; but the one is a chimney, the other a paltry model of a paltrier edifice.

From The Poetry of Architecture Or, the Architecture of the Nations of Europe Considered in its Association with Natural Scenery and National Character by John Ruskin

He must maintain appearances in keeping with his associations—or drop downscale to meaner opportunities and paltrier prizes.

From The Law of Hemlock Mountain by Hugh Lundsford

If one of the meanest of human conditions is conscious heroism, paltrier yet is heroism before the fact, incapable of self realization!

From The Marquis of Lossie by George MacDonald

This not only explains why Jupiter only has the paltriest of rings at present; it suggests that it likely never had large rings.

From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2022

Meanwhile, the true laborers of the book industry — those who hustle and work the angles, who take the greatest risks and reap the paltriest rewards — will barely get any bookseller facetime at all.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2020

The spring snowpack is the paltriest ever measured — by April it contained just 5% of a normal year’s water — and by the end of August the major reservoirs held 59% of their historical average.

From Nature ● Sep. 29, 2015

He had been known to quit a house on the paltriest excuse, removing to another in which he could not expect equally good treatment.

From Victorian Short Stories of Troubled Marriages by Rudyard Kipling

He could tell you the very brand of the pills the Raja is taking: he receives the paltriest gossip of the Nawab's court filtered through a lying vakeel.

From Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series by George Robert Aberigh-Mackay