petty

Trade bible Variety called it a "lacerating portrait," while Deadline said the "damning" film had "thrashed" Musk as "petty, narcissistic, megalomaniacal, cruel."

From Barron's ● Sep. 10, 2026

"It started as petty anti-social behaviour pre-Christmas and has escalated to significant shoplifting and theft. We've got to put an end to it," he says.

From BBC ● Sep. 6, 2026

Peter the Great’s Westernizing reforms had only produced “enlightened slaves,” the worst of which were the chinovniki, petty bureaucrats: “uneducated, hungry, fit only for ‘service,’ familiar only with official forms.”

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026

Characters forced to make do either lash out, like raging overreactors on Lee Sung Jin’s petty, brutal “Beef,” or fall into holding patterns, like the unlucky in love leads of Issa Rae’s dramedy “Insecure.”

From Salon ● Aug. 30, 2026

I hadn’t forgotten the accusing look Miss Buckner had given me when she saw me with the petty cash—as if I had been doing something untoward, soliciting favors from Mr. Haber.

From "The Red Car to Hollywood" by Jennie Liu

“If I find him annoying, that means that maybe I’m going to come in a little bit pettier than usual,” says Martin.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 31, 2024

Listen, I’m sure there will be a lot of sturm und drang about what the whistleblower disclosures mean for Elon Musk’s Twitter deal, but I want to focus on something dumber and pettier: Jack Dorsey.

From The Verge ● Aug. 23, 2022

But because Doncic is an NBA all-star, his true intent probably was pettier — an insinuation that the refs were on the Suns’ payroll.

From Washington Post ● May 10, 2022

What recent appraisals haven’t settled, though, is a pettier tiff among De Palma’s fans, about the “right” way to appreciate De Palma.

From New York Times ● Sep. 24, 2020

He had no muscle, because he took little exercise, and was, consequently, frequently bilious, which often resulted in his saying or doing much meaner and pettier things than he intended.

From 'As Gold in the Furnace' A College Story by John E. Copus

It’s elementary: Characters can do outlandish things, commit outrageous crimes, be inspired by the pettiest of motives.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 30, 2025

Furst insisted no topic is off the table, from the pettiest accusation to the most serious charge.

From Seattle Times ● Dec. 21, 2023

This is just the pettiest host behavior in my recent memory — at least.

From Washington Post ● Dec. 12, 2018

The blog post is a tidy package of the pettiest things many of us might have thought and felt in the throes of our first cosmos-shifting romances, but were probably too self-aware to say aloud.

From Slate ● Apr. 9, 2018

He looked up from the game of patience he was playing, a game in which he was apt to attribute the pettiest personal motives to the court-cards whenever he failed to get out.

From The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett by Compton MacKenzie