paltry

comparative paltrier · superlative paltriest · alternative obsolete paultry · alternative obsolete paultrie · alternative obsolete palterey

1. Trashy, trivial, of little value.

   She made some paltry excuse and left.

   2 more examples

   This is indeed a paltry flyer about a silly product.

   There are a great many languages, like Eskimo and Nootka and, aside from paltry exceptions, the Semitic languages, that cannot compound radical elements.

   1921, Edward Sapir, Language: An introduction to the study of speech

   Synonyms: insignificant, unimportant, petty, trivial, beggarly

2. Of little monetary worth.

   Could someone hope to survive on such a paltry income?

   3 more examples

   Student grants these days are paltry, and many students have to take out loans.

   As for those Samnites, and the men of Uz, That bought my Spanish oils and wines of Greece, Here have I purs'd their paltry silverlings. Fie, what a trouble 'tis to count this trash!

   c. 1589–1590 (date written), Christopher Marlo[we], edited by Tho[mas] Heywood, The Famous Tragedy of the Rich Iew of Malta. […], London: […] I[ohn] B[eale] for Nicholas Vavasour, […], published 1633, →OCLC, Act I

   Meanwhile, the trade deal has left Britain’s fishing communities screaming betrayal, unhappy with their paltry gains and facing expensive barriers to export what they have caught.

   2022 July 8, Daniel Boffey, “Collapsing public support suggests Brexit is anything but done”, in The Guardian

   Synonyms: meager, worthless, pitiful, trifling

3. Despicable; contemptibly unimportant.

   a paltry coward

   1 more example

   "An aged man is but a paltry thing, / A tattered coat upon a stick"

   1928, William Butler Yeats, Sailing to Byzantium