piddling

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.

It’s exciting as spectacle, but on the substance every element of the preceding sentence is piddling.

From The Wall Street Journal • Oct. 16, 2025

It also would have reduced Hiroshima and Nagasaki to a piddling afterthought; Nolan treats them instead as a profound absence, an indictment by silence.

From Los Angeles Times • Aug. 11, 2023

We loved her when she was open and raw, giving unflinchingly monologues on small stages she often ran onto, with piddling crowds she had to win over.

From Salon • May 27, 2023

There are few targets riper for satire than the customs and conventions of affluent suburbanites, and yet only a piddling handful of pop-culture parodies go for the jugular with the requisite precision or salutary bloodlust.

From Washington Post • Oct. 15, 2021

Another time he tried a new variety—Rainiers—that wouldn’t take because he used too much nitrogen: lots of green, plants high and fluffy, but small hard fruit, a piddling harvest.

From "Snow Falling on Cedars: A Novel" by David Guterson