What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

Momentous vs Trivial - What's the difference?

momentous | trivial |

As adjectives the difference between momentous and trivial

is that momentous is outstanding in importance, of great consequence while trivial is ignorable; of little significance or value.

As a noun trivial is

any of the three liberal arts forming the trivium.

momentous

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Outstanding in importance, of great consequence.
  • * 1725 , , Everybody's Business is Nobody's Business :
    • The reason why I did not publish this book till the end of the last sessions of parliament was, because I did not care to interfere with more momentous affairs.
  • * 1831 , , Homeward Bound , ch. 31:
    • "It has been a momentous month, and I hope we shall all retain healthful recollections of it as long as we live."
  • * 1902 , , The End of the Tether , ch. 3:
    • What to the other parties was merely the sale of a ship was to him a momentous event involving a radically new view of existence.
  • * 2007 July 1, , " Inferior Design," New York Times (retrieved 19 Nov 2013):
    • Natural selection is arguably the most momentous idea ever to occur to a human mind, because it — alone as far as we know — explains the elegant illusion of design that pervades the living kingdoms and explains, in passing, us.

    Derived terms

    * momentously * momentousness

    trivial

    English

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Ignorable; of little significance or value.
  • * 1848, , Bantam Classics (1997), 16:
    • "All which details, I have no doubt, Jones , who reads this book at his Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial , twaddling, and ultra-sentimental."
  • Commonplace, ordinary.
  • * De Quincey
    • As a scholar, meantime, he was trivial , and incapable of labour.
  • Concerned with or involving trivia.
  • (biology) Relating to or designating the name of a species; specific as opposed to generic.
  • (mathematics) Of, relating to, or being the simplest possible case.
  • (mathematics) Self-evident.
  • Pertaining to the trivium.
  • (philosophy) Indistinguishable in case of truth or falsity.

    • Synonyms

    * (of little significance) ignorable, negligible, trifling

    Antonyms

    * nontrivial * important * significant * radical * fundamental

    Derived terms

    * trivia

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (obsolete) Any of the three liberal arts forming the trivium.
    • (Skelton)
    (Wood)
    (Webster 1913) ----