Adjacent Words

Paltry definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

PAL'TRY, a. [Gr. vile, and to fail.] Ragged; mean; vile; worthless; despicable; as a paltry boy; a paltry slave; a paltry trifle.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: not worth considering; "he considered the prize too paltry for the lives it must cost"; "piffling efforts"; "a trifling matter" [syn: negligible, paltry, trifling]
2: contemptibly small in amount; "a measly tip"; "the company donated a miserable $100 for flood relief"; "a paltry wage"; "almost depleted his miserable store of dried beans" [syn: measly, miserable, paltry]

Merriam Webster's

adjective (paltrier; -est) Etymology: obsolete paltry trash, from dialect palt, pelt piece of coarse cloth, trash; akin to Middle Low German palte rag Date: 1570 1. inferior, trashy 2. mean, despicable <a paltry trick> 3. trivial <a paltry excuse> 4. meager, measly <made a paltry donation> • paltriness noun

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. (paltrier, paltriest) worthless, contemptible, trifling. Derivatives: paltriness n. Etymology: 16th c.: f. paltry trash app. f. palt, pelt rubbish + -RY (cf. trumpery): cf. LG paltrig ragged

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Paltry Pal"try, a. [Compar. Paltrier; superl. Paltriest.] [Cf. Prov. E. paltry refuse, rubbish, LG. paltering ragged, palte, palter, a rag, a tatter, Dan. pialt, Sw. palta, pl. paltor.] Mean; vile; worthless; despicable; contemptible; pitiful; trifling; as, a paltry excuse; paltry gold. --Cowper. The paltry prize is hardly worth the cost. --Byron. Syn: See Contemptible.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

A paltry amount of money or of something else is one that you consider to be very small. ...a paltry fine of £150... ADJ: usu ADJ n, oft a ADJ amount

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. Small, little, diminutive, inconsiderable, insignificant, unimportant, petty, miserable, wretched, slight, slender, feeble, trifling, trivial, of no consequence, of no importance. 2. Base, vile, abject, grovelling, low, mean, beggarly, pitiful, despicable, contemptible, worthless, shabby, shuffling, shifty.

Moby Thesaurus

Lenten, Mickey Mouse, Spartan, abject, abominable, abstemious, arrant, ascetic, atrocious, austere, base, beggarly, beneath contempt, borne, cheap, cheesy, coarse, common, contemptible, crummy, debased, degraded, depraved, despicable, dirty, disgusting, dwarfed, dwarfish, execrable, exiguous, flagrant, foul, fourth-class, frugal, fulsome, gaudy, gimcracky, grave, gross, heinous, illiberal, impoverished, inconsequential, inconsiderable, ineffectual, inferior, insignificant, irregular, jejune, lean, limited, little, low, low-class, low-down, low-grade, low-quality, low-test, lumpen, mangy, meager, mean, measly, meretricious, mingy, miserable, miserly, monstrous, narrow, nefarious, niggardly, obnoxious, odious, parsimonious, pathetic, petty, picayune, piddling, pitiable, pitiful, poky, poor, punk, puny, rank, reptilian, rubbishy, sad, scabby, scant, scanty, scrawny, scrimp, scrimpy, scrubby, scruffy, scummy, scurvy, scuzzy, second-best, second-class, seedy, set, shabby, shoddy, skimp, skimpy, sleazy, slender, slight, slim, small, sorry, spare, sparing, squalid, starvation, stingy, stinted, straitened, stunted, subsistence, tacky, tatty, thin, third-class, third-rate, tinny, trashy, trifling, trivial, trumpery, two-for-a-cent, two-for-a-penny, twopenny, twopenny-halfpenny, unchivalrous, ungenerous, unimportant, unmentionable, unnourishing, unnutritious, valueless, vile, watered, watery, worthless, wretched