Impertinent vs Trifling - What's the difference?
impertinent | trifling | Related terms |
insolent, ill-mannered
* Tillotson
* Jeremy Taylor
irrelevant (opposite of pertinent)
An impertinent individual.
* (Maria Edgeworth)
trivial, or of little importance
* 2005 , .
idle or frivolous
The act of one who trifles; frivolous behaviour.
* George Croly, Samuel Warren, Marston, or the Memoirs of a Statesman
Impertinent is a related term of trifling.
As adjectives the difference between impertinent and trifling
is that impertinent is insolent, ill-mannered while trifling is trivial, or of little importance.As nouns the difference between impertinent and trifling
is that impertinent is an impertinent individual while trifling is the act of one who trifles; frivolous behaviour.impertinent
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- things that are impertinent to us
- How impertinent that grief was which served no end!
Usage notes
Although, historically, definition 2 was the original (derived from the French below) usage; meaning gradually changed to definition 1. More recently general usage has come to, once again, incorporate definition 2. As many older speakers will consider definition 2 incorrect, avoiding the word altogether may be advisable. The construction "not pertinent" is one possible alternative.Synonyms
* See alsoNoun
(en noun)- comfortably recessed from curious impertinents
trifling
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- it doesn't take him long to make any of them, and he sells them for some trifling sum of money.
Synonyms
* trivial * inconsequential * petty * See alsoNoun
(en noun)- He writes on the principle, of course, that in one's dotage we are privileged to return to the triflings of our infancy, and that Downing Street cannot be better employed in these days than as a chapel of ease to Eton.
