Piffling

3 definitions found

From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 [gcide]:

  Piffle \Pif"fle\, v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Piffled}; p. pr. & vb. n.
     {Piffling}.]
     To be sequeamish or delicate; hence, to act or talk
     triflingly or ineffectively; to talk nonsense or about
     trivial matters; to twaddle; piddle. [Dial. or Slang]
  


     Syn: chatter, palaver, prate, tittle-tattle, twaddle, clack,
          maunder, prattle, gibber, tattle, blabber, gabble.
          [Webster 1913 Suppl. + WordNet 1.5]
  
     2. To act in a trivial or ineffective way.
        [WordNet 1.5]

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  piffling
       adj : (informal terms) small and of little importance; "a fiddling
             sum of money"; "a footling gesture"; "our worries are
             lilliputian compared with those of countries that are
             at war"; "a little (or small) matter"; "Mickey Mouse
             regulations"; "a dispute over niggling details";
             "limited to petty enterprises"; "piffling efforts";
             "giving a police officer a free meal may be against the
             law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction" [syn: {fiddling},
              {footling}, {lilliputian}, {little}, {Mickey Mouse}, {niggling},
              {piddling}, {petty}, {picayune}, {trivial}]

From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:

  22 Moby Thesaurus words for "piffling":
     Mickey Mouse, jerkwater, measly, niggling, one-horse, peddling,
     pettifogging, petty, picayune, picayunish, piddling, pimping, poky,
     punk, puny, small-beer, small-time, tinhorn, trifling, trivial,
     two-bit, two-by-four