trifle

The game badly misses Alcaraz—“Tennis needs him,” Sinner said Sunday—but no tennis player should trifle with a bad wrist.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 12, 2026

Would you be nervous if you needed to call Sir Ben Kingsley — always “Sir Ben,” you don’t trifle with the title — and convince him to be in your movie?

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 17, 2026

Still, it is the frolicsome rapport between the two stars that gives this comic trifle of a play its allure.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 20, 2026

Looking towards Christmas, the baker said he would be making a triple chocolate tart for his cousin Grace and might recreate his trifle from the show.

From BBC ● Dec. 16, 2025

She weaved a trifle, then fainted, collapsing to the floor.

From "Franny and Zooey" by J. D. Salinger

“It’s all over Pinterest,” said Kraft Heinz’s Molly White, referring to the flurry of Fourth-of-July trifles and “fluff” salads.

From Salon ● Jul. 5, 2025

She’s interested in adding regular savories such as pasties and sausage rolls, and maybe bringing new treats such as trifles or Eton Messes to her roster.

From Seattle Times ● Feb. 13, 2024

Other, seemingly familiar terms — romper room, sherry trifles — have their innocence stripped from them to reveal a second, more sinister meaning.

From Washington Post ● Oct. 28, 2022

The Ray Anthony Orchestra was a prolific ensemble, releasing countless dance singles in the early 1950s, including “The Hokey Pokey” and “The Bunny Hop” — swinging trifles that captured a national audience almost immediately.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 25, 2022

Perhaps Brand and Cooke, lacking interests that could absorb them, fuming like children over trifles, simply invented their hate of each other in order to have something to feel deeply about.

From "Black Boy" by Richard Wright

Let’s say this up front: A wrist on the racket hand isn’t the sort of injury to be trifled with.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 6, 2026

Whitney is not a mountain to be trifled with, and a lot of people lack respect for it and find themselves in dangerous situations.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2025

This powerful wave is not to be trifled with, and in the event of an emergency, the staff can turn it off instantly.

From Seattle Times ● Jul. 28, 2023

Sleep is not to be trifled with; there is nothing low-stakes about it.

From Washington Post ● Jan. 16, 2023

She told them calmly, “Never mind, girls, this machine mustn’t be trifled with, but certainly is airworthy.”

From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein

At first blush, that may seem like a trifling concept.

From Salon ● Sep. 28, 2026

The current bout of softness is trifling compared with a complete halt in sailings.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 28, 2026

The planet’s trifling atmosphere—about 1 percent the density of our own—is notoriously too thin to help slow down a spacecraft attempting to land, but can still create turbulence and potential disaster.

From Slate ● Dec. 9, 2025

To state the obvious, the big picture is all this is trifling and academic because the government won by a million miles, with a majority of 120.

From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2024

It was as if he had had to pay the same note twice because of some trifling oversight of date or signature.

From "Absalom, Absalom!" by William Faulkner