TRIVIAL

Pronunciation (US):

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does trivial mean? 

• TRIVIAL (adjective)
  The adjective TRIVIAL has 3 senses:

1. (informal) small and of little importance

2. of little substance or significance

3. concerned with trivialities

  Familiarity information: TRIVIAL used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• TRIVIAL (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(informal) small and of little importance

Synonyms:

fiddling; footling; lilliputian; little; niggling; petty; picayune; piddling; piffling; trivial

Context example:

giving a police officer a free meal may be against the law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction

Similar:

unimportant (not important)

Domain usage:

colloquialism (a colloquial expression; characteristic of spoken or written communication that seeks to imitate informal speech)

Derivation:

trivia (something of small importance)

triviality (the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous)

trivialize (make trivial or insignificant)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Of little substance or significance

Synonyms:

superficial; trivial

Context example:

only trivial objections

Similar:

insignificant; unimportant (devoid of importance, meaning, or force)

Derivation:

trivia (something of small importance)

triviality (a detail that is considered insignificant)

trivialize (make trivial or insignificant)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Concerned with trivialities

Context example:

a trivial mind

Similar:

frivolous (not serious in content or attitude or behavior)

 Context examples 

The incident however, was too trivial to relate and can have no possible bearing upon the case.

(The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I will; and you shall hear how poor the proposal is,—how trivial—how cramping.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Such, she believed, were his words; but scarcely had she received their sound, than her attention was caught by other sounds immediately behind her, which rendered every thing else trivial.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)

Can you ask me, then, whether I am ready to look into any new problem, however trivial it may prove?

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

The message was absurd and trivial.

(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

I too have seen the need of putting down at present everything, however trivial; but there is little in this except what is personal.

(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)

The man’s death is a mere incident—a trivial episode—in comparison with our real task, which is to trace this document and save a European catastrophe.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Before they parted, she had to thank him for another pleasure, and one of no trivial kind.

(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)

Trivial name applied, together with dehydratase, to certain hydro-lyases (EC class 4.2.1) catalyzing hydration-dehydration.

(Lyase, NCI Thesaurus)

Some nucleotidyltransferases bear specific names (e.g., adenylyltransferases), or trivial names indicating the linkage hydrolyzed in the synthesis (pyrophosphorylases, phosphorylases), or names of the material synthesized (RNA or DNA polymerase).

(Nucleotidyltransferase, NCI Thesaurus)