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

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

This tour has ended like all the others – injuries, collapses in form and a selection trifle.

From BBC ● Jan. 6, 2026

Still on my must-try list: a gingerbread-cranberry cheesecake trifle at Disneyland’s Jolly Holiday Bakery Cafe and the gingerbread pancakes at River Belle Terrace.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 19, 2025

More than a trifle grimly, he brought his cigar to his mouth and dragged on it, but it had gone out.

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

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

Unlike dogs, which are sometimes cruelly inbred to select for traits, warty pumpkins are merely briefly-held autumn trifles — even when a lot of biological science underlies their appearance.

From Salon ● Oct. 30, 2022

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

Mittelstaedt stoops down and says reproachfully: “And in the trifles never lose sight of the great adventure, Territorial Kantorek!”

From "All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel" by Erich Maria Remarque

Still, it “proves what the Chinese and everyone else are saying—these are capable things and they are not to be trifled with,” said Brendan Mulvaney, director of the China Aerospace Studies Institute, a U.S.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 22, 2025

He was not one to be trifled with.”

From Seattle Times ● Nov. 30, 2023

From eating holes in people's brains to generating nasty tumors to putting folks in comas, some fungi are not to be trifled with.

From Salon ● Mar. 22, 2023

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

From Washington Post ● Jan. 16, 2023

He warned that Robert Millikan’s proud institution in Pasadena was not to be trifled with.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

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 traffic cone guys weren't letting such trifling issues dampen their day.

From BBC ● Jun. 20, 2026

Frankly, the more trifling the crime, the better this franchise’s comedy aspirations would work.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 24, 2025

Dad said we should stay vigilant, but by winter my attention had shifted back to the trifling dramas of my own life.

From "Educated" by Tara Westover