Thesaurus.com
Dictionary.com
Definitions

piffle

[pif-uhl] / ˈpɪf əl /


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.

See Examples For:

I defy you to tell me what this blithering piffle actually means.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 21, 2025

For more than two hours, it pelts you with piffle so egregious — not just puns but also dad jokes, double entendres and booby-trapped one-liners — that, forced into submission, you eventually give in.

From New York Times ● Apr. 4, 2023

If you don’t look closely, or are in a reactive state of mind, it’s easy enough to write off the show as Cold War piffle, even propaganda for a world of bland “normalcy.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 27, 2019

In the middle of the season, that is just a piffle.

From Washington Times ● Mar. 4, 2019

Oh I see said the Earl but my own idear is that these things are as piffle before the wind.

From The Young Visiters or, Mr. Salteena's Plan by J. M. (James Matthew) Barrie

Setting a price ridiculously below dealer costs, knowing that a customer will not find anything cheaper elsewhere, and then "uploading" the package with piffles when the buyer returns.

From Time Magazine Archive

They piddled and piffled with iron: I'd given my orders for steel.

From The Seven Seas by Rudyard Kipling

Misther Madden says 'Piffle,' but Oi say where are they piffled to?

From The Cruise of the Dry Dock by T. S. Stribling

I knew — I knew what was coming, when we bid on the Byfleet's keel — They piddled and piffled with iron: I'd given my orders for steel!

From Verses 1889-1896 by Rudyard Kipling

Yet it went ignored while Sly Stallone’s piffling King Lear act in the mediocre Creed is hailed like the second coming.

From Slate ● Jan. 4, 2016

There is even a tiny one – a piffling four million times as massive as the Sun – at the heart of the Milky Way, the galaxy we call home.

From The Guardian ● Dec. 12, 2012

British MPs sold their reputations for a piffling return—one MP submitted a claim for a hot drink he had bought in the House of Commons tearoom.

From Scientific American ● Dec. 9, 2011

Because markets for land are so ill-developed in Africa and governments so weak, rents are piffling: $2 per hectare per year in Ethiopia; $5 in Liberia.

From Economist ● May 5, 2011

The piffling toad steps away from her and says, “Non capisco! Ha!”

From "The Unfinished Angel" by Sharon Creech




Vocabulary.com logo
by dictionary.com

Join 14,000,000 vocabulary learners

Start learning new words today on VocabTrainer.
You'll remember them forever.

Start training