Trifle vs Mere - What's the difference?
trifle | mere |
An English dessert made from a mixture of thick custard, fruit, sponge cake, jelly and whipped cream.
An insignificant amount.
* {{quote-book, year=1928, author=Lawrence R. Bourne
, title=Well Tackled!
, chapter=17 Anything that is of little importance or worth.
* Shakespeare
* Drayton
A particular kind of pewter.
(uncountable) Utensils made from this particular kind of pewter.
To deal with something as if it were of little importance or worth.
To act, speak, or otherwise behave with jest.
To inconsequentially toy with something.
To squander or waste.
(obsolete) the sea
(dialectal, or, literary) a pool; a small lake or pond; marsh
* 1955 , William Golding, The Inheritors , Faber & Faber 2005, p. 194:
boundary, limit; a boundary-marker; boundary-line
* 1590 , Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene , III.ix:
(obsolete) To limit; bound; divide or cause division in.
(obsolete) To set divisions and bounds.
(label) Pure, unalloyed .
* 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.8:
* , I.56:
(label) Nothing less than; complete, downright .
* , II.3.7:
Just, only; no more than , pure and simple, neither more nor better than might be expected.
*
* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=(Edwin Black)
, chapter=2, title= * {{quote-magazine, date=2012-03
, author=, volume=100, issue=2, page=106
, magazine=(American Scientist)
, title=
As nouns the difference between trifle and mere
is that trifle is an English dessert made from a mixture of thick custard, fruit, sponge cake, jelly and whipped cream while mere is the sea.As verbs the difference between trifle and mere
is that trifle is to deal with something as if it were of little importance or worth while mere is to limit; bound; divide or cause division in.As an adjective mere is
famous.trifle
English
Noun
citation, passage=Commander Birch was a trifle uneasy when he found there was more than a popple on the sea; it was, in fact, distinctly choppy. Strictly speaking, he ought to have been following up the picket–boat, but he was satisfied that the circumstances were sufficiently urgent for him to take risks.}}
- Trifles light as air / Are to the jealous confirmation strong / As proofs of holy writ.
- with such poor trifles playing
Synonyms
See also: . * (insignificant amount) iota, jot, scrap, whit * (thing of little importance or worth) bagatelle, minor detail, whiffleDerived terms
* a trifleSee also
* ("trifle" on Wikipedia)Verb
(trifl)Anagrams
* * ----mere
English
(wikipedia mere)Etymology 1
From (etyl) mere, from (etyl) .Alternative forms
* (l), (l), (l)Noun
(en noun)- (Drayton)
- (Tennyson)
- Lok got to his feet and wandered along by the marshes towards the mere where Fa had disappeared.
Derived terms
* mereswine * mermaid * merman * merfolkEtymology 2
From (etyl), from (etyl) .Alternative forms
* (l), (l), (l), (l)Noun
(en noun)- The Troian Brute'' did first that Citie found, / And ''Hygate'' made the meare thereof by West, / And ''Ouert gate by North: that is the bound / Toward the land; two riuers bound the rest.
Verb
(mer)Etymology 3
From (etyl), from (etyl) .Alternative forms
* (l), (l)Etymology 4
From (etyl) meer, from (etyl) mier, from (etyl) merus. Perhaps influenced by (etyl) , or conflated with Etymology 3.Adjective
(er)- So oft as I this history record, / My heart doth melt with meere compassion.
- Meere .
- If every man might have what he wouldwe should have another chaos in an instant, a meer confusion.
- Thus the red damask curtains which now shut out the fog-laden, drizzling atmosphere of the Marylebone Road, had cost a mere song, and yet they might have been warranted to last another thirty years. A great bargain also had been the excellent Axminster carpet which covered the floor;.
Internal Combustion, passage=More than a mere source of Promethean sustenance to thwart the cold and cook one's meat, wood was quite simply mankind's first industrial and manufacturing fuel.}}
Pixels or Perish, passage=Drawings and pictures are more than mere ornaments in scientific discourse. Blackboard sketches, geological maps, diagrams of molecular structure, astronomical photographs, MRI images, the many varieties of statistical charts and graphs: These pictorial devices are indispensable tools for presenting evidence, for explaining a theory, for telling a story.}}