piddling
adj/ˈpɪdəlɪŋ/
1
Insignificant, negligible, paltry, trivial, useless.
- After all the work I'd done, he gave me a piddling amount of money.
- the ignoble hucksterage of piddling tithes1641 May, John Milton, Of Reformation Touching Church-Discipline in England: And the Causes that hitherto have Hindred it. […], [London]: […] Thomas Vnderhill, →OCLC:
2 more examples
- Los Angeles would still be a piddling little town in a desert if it weren’t for Sierra snowmelt and city officials crafty enough to snooker eastern California farmers out of their water rights.2023 August 6, Daniel Duane, “It’s August. Californians Are Still Skiing. Don’t Ask.”, in The New York Times:
- […]last month the Pentagon spent $400mn to take a 15 per cent stake in MP Materials, a Nevada-based group that aims to be “a fully integrated rare earths producer”. That is a piddling sum.2025 August 30, Gillian Tett, “America’s new ‘patriotic’ capitalism”, in FT Weekend, London: The Financial Times Ltd., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 7:
- Derived terms
- piddlingly