a trifle
English
Adverb
a trifle (not comparable)
- A little, slightly.
- Could you lend me some money? I'm a trifle short of what I need to pay the rent.
- 1872, George Eliot, Middlemarch, Book 3, Chapter 23,
- He contemplated the large well-proportioned letters and final flourish, with his head a trifle on one side for an instant […]
- 1928, Lawrence R. Bourne, chapter 17, in Well Tackled!:
- 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.
- 1957, Neville Shute, On the Beach, New York: William Morrow, Chapter 4,
- He stared at the chart. “Maybe we’ll move away towards the west a trifle, and come down on Fiji from the north.”
- 2006, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Wizard of the Crow, New York: Knopf Doubleday, Book 3, p. 411,
- “Let’s get on with it,” Sikiokuu replied, a trifle impatiently.
Synonyms
- a bit
- a smidgeon
- a tad
Anagrams
- Telfair, tarfile