pettiness

nounextreme unimportance

Synonyms for pettiness

noun extreme unimportance

Word Origin & History

late 14c., "small," from phonemic spelling of Old French petit "small" (see petit). In English, not originally disparaging (cf. petty cash, 1834; petty officer, 1570s). Meaning "of small importance" is recorded from 1520s; that of "small-minded" is from 1580s. Related: Pettily; pettiness. An old name for "Northern Lights" was petty dancers.

Example Sentences for pettiness

Nothing but our own pinchbeck ideas could ascribe to Him this pettiness.

Round me there is naught but weakness, hypocrisy, pettiness.

I wish to be thought exclusive, yet I condemn the pettiness of my ambition.

Then, indeed, was no restraint or pettiness; then men were hard and firm and strong.

And James was horrified at the pettiness and the prejudice which he found in his home.

She did not desire gardens, then, nor the pettiness of plump terraced hills.

Had his pettiness been merely external, that would not have mattered.

I like a man to be strong, and Harcourt is strong—he has no pettiness in his nature.

Conceit, he rejoined, may be of an order so monstrous that it loses all pettiness.

For she is not hampered by narrowness of thought or by pettiness of spirit.

pettiness

Synonyms for pettiness

insignificance

meanness

nihility

nonexistence

nothingness

pettiness

Synonyms for pettiness

More words related to pettiness

hairsplitting

insignificance

meanness

nihility

nonexistence

nothingness