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Trifling vs Niggardly - What's the difference?

trifling | niggardly | Related terms |

Trifling is a related term of niggardly.


As adjectives the difference between trifling and niggardly

is that trifling is trivial, or of little importance while niggardly is withholding for the sake of meanness; stingy, miserly.

As a noun trifling

is the act of one who trifles; frivolous behaviour.

As an adverb niggardly is

in a parsimonious way; sparingly, stingily.

trifling

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • trivial, or of little importance
  • * 2005 , .
    • it doesn't take him long to make any of them, and he sells them for some trifling sum of money.
  • idle or frivolous

    • Synonyms

    * trivial * inconsequential * petty * See also

    Related terms

    * trifle

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The act of one who trifles; frivolous behaviour.
  • * George Croly, Samuel Warren, Marston, or the Memoirs of a Statesman
    • 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.

    Anagrams

    * flirting

    niggardly

    English

    (Controversies about the word "niggardly")

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • Withholding for the sake of meanness; stingy, miserly.
  • * Bishop Hall
    • Where the owner of the house will be bountiful, it is not for the steward to be niggardly .
  • * 1919 ,
    • They were not niggardly , these tramps, and he who had money did not hesitate to share it among the rest.
  • * 1958 , , The Affluent Society (1998 edition), ISBN 9780395925003, p. 186:
    • This manifests itself in an implacable tendency to provide an opulent supply of some things and a niggardly yield of others.

    Synonyms

    * miserly, stingy. * See also

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • In a parsimonious way; sparingly, stingily.
  • *, New York 2001, p.105:
    • because many families are compelled to live niggardly , exhaust and undone by great dowers, none shall be given at all, or very little […].

    Usage notes

    * This term may cause offence as it is easily misinterpreted to be an adverbial form of the racial epithet (nigger). Racist Language, Real and Imagined , Steven Pinker. February 2, 1999. The New York Times (editorial). The two words are etymologically unrelated.

    References

    See also

    * (Controversies about the word "niggardly")