Adjacent Words

Trivial definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

TRIV'IAL, a. [L. trivialis; probably from Gr.; L. tero, trivi, to wear, or from trivium, a highway.]
1. Trifling; of little worth or importance; inconsiderable; as a trivial subject; a trivial affair.
2. Worthless; vulgar.
Trivial name, in natural history, the common name for the species, which added to the generic name forms the complete denomination of the species; the specific name. Thus in Lathyrus aphaca, Lathyrus is the generic name, and aphaca the trivial or specific name, and the two combined form the complete denomination of the species. Linne at first applied the term specific name to the essential character of the species, now called the specific definition or difference; but it is now applied solely to the trivial name.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: (informal) 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"; "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, niggling, piddling, piffling, petty, picayune, trivial]
2: of little substance or significance; "a few superficial editorial changes"; "only trivial objections" [syn: superficial, trivial]
3: concerned with trivialities; "a trivial young woman"; "a trivial mind"

Merriam Webster's

adjective Etymology: Latin trivialis found everywhere, commonplace, from trivium crossroads, from tri- + via way — more at way Date: 1589 1. commonplace, ordinary 2. a. of little worth or importance <a trivial objection> <trivial problems> b. relating to or being the mathematically simplest case; specifically characterized by having all variables equal to zero <a trivial solution to a linear equation> 3. specific 4 • trivialist noun • trivially adverb

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. 1 of small value or importance; trifling (raised trivial objections). 2 (of a person) concerned only with trivial things. 3 archaic commonplace or humdrum (the trivial round of daily life). 4 Biol. & Chem. of a name: a popular; not scientific. b specific, as opposed to generic. 5 Math. giving rise to no difficulty or interest. Derivatives: triviality n. (pl. -ies). trivially adv. trivialness n. Etymology: L trivialis commonplace f. trivium: see TRIVIUM

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Trivial Triv"i*al, a. [L. trivialis, properly, that is in, or belongs to, the crossroads or public streets; hence, that may be found everywhere, common, fr. trivium a place where three roads meet, a crossroad, the public street; tri- (see Tri-) + via a way: cf. F. trivial. See Voyage.] 1. Found anywhere; common. [Obs.] 2. Ordinary; commonplace; trifling; vulgar. As a scholar, meantime, he was trivial, and incapable of labor. --De Quincey. 3. Of little worth or importance; inconsiderable; trifling; petty; paltry; as, a trivial subject or affair. The trivial round, the common task. --Keble. 4. Of or pertaining to the trivium. Trivial name (Nat. Hist.), the specific name.

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Trivial Triv"i*al, n. One of the three liberal arts forming the trivium. [Obs.] --Skelton. Wood.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

If you describe something as trivial, you think that it is unimportant and not serious. The director tried to wave aside these issues as trivial details that could be settled later... ADJ

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

a. 1. (Rare.) Common, ordinary, vulgar, common-place. 2. Trifling, petty, small, frivolous, slight, light, nugatory, paltry, unimportant, inconsiderable, insignificant, immaterial, of little value, of little consequence.

Moby Thesaurus

Mickey, NG, airy, ankle-deep, asinine, base, bickering, captious, casual, catchpenny, caviling, cheap, choplogic, cursory, deficient, depthless, empty, epidermal, equivocatory, evasive, fatuous, few, flimsy, foolish, footling, fribble, fribbling, frivolous, frothy, futile, good-for-naught, good-for-nothing, hairsplitting, hedging, idle, imperfect, inadequate, inane, incompetent, inconsequential, inconsiderable, insignificant, insufficient, jejune, junk, junky, knee-deep, light, little, logic-chopping, low, maladroit, meager, mean, measly, mediocre, miniature, minor, negligible, nit-picking, no great shakes, no-account, no-good, not comparable, not deep, not in it, not worth having, not worth mentioning, not worthwhile, nugacious, nugatory, on the surface, otiose, out of it, paltering, petty, picayune, picayunish, pussyfooting, quibbling, shabby, shallow, shallow-rooted, shoal, shoddy, shoestring, short, shuffling, silly, skin-deep, slender, slight, small, small-beer, superficial, surface, thin, tiny, trashy, trichoschistic, trifling, trite, unimportant, unprofound, unskillful, vacuous, vain, valueless, vapid, windy, worthless