trifling

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Scarce, inadequate and not enough
be at a premiumidiom
be thin on the groundidiom
chronic shortage
dearth
dearth of something
gold dust
insufficiently
lack
lacking
like gold dustidiom
long on something and short on somethingidiom
lousy
scarce
scarcity
scrubby
shortage
shortfall
shy
skinny
thin

You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Small amounts of money
Not of good quality

paltry | American Dictionary

paltry
adjective
us/ˈpɔl·tri/
less than expected or needed; too small or slight:
I don’t think my paltry student grants are enough for us to live on.

paltry | Business English

paltry
adjective
uk /ˈpɔːltri/us
disapproving
used to describe an amount of money that is very small:
The savers were getting a paltry 0.1% interest regardless of the balance in their accounts.
a paltry amount/sum/figureMidwives are paid paltry sums to do truly demanding jobs.
a paltry payment/salary/returnMiners' families get by on paltry salaries, and from time to time lose their loved ones in accidents.
Ms. Page said the settlement from the state is paltry.
of low quality:
The research in this area has been paltry and weak.

Examples of paltry

paltry
How do we explain all these paltry records?
The paltry amounts of crops and hedge-wood taken indicate that what was in most cases stolen was intended for immediate consumption rather than for resale.
Regional integration schemes among less developed countries have yielded paltry results largely because these economies are often only loosely connected to one another.
Without it the information reported here will look very paltry, but in fact in its context it does contribute to our knowledge of this chant.
Although they are rather paltry, given their position they must have contained the remains of honoured personages, probably rulers of the pre-imperial period.
What aggravated the problem of developing a genuine bureaucracy was the paltry level of salaries.
Their paltry and insignificant level has already been considered.
His old possessions seem paltry to him now.
Observing the price volume graph will give us a clear indication that the price levels have come down drastically over the years and seem to have stabilised at paltry levels.
Even so, during this period the membership of such organizations was paltry, and their operations tended to be both on a small scale and sporadic in nature.
Hence, their furious reaction last month when they closed all but a paltry three of the reform-minded daily newspapers.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
The paltry sums pledged, the lack of clarity concerning their allocation and the individualistic logic behind the vehicle promoted testify to this.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
Similarly, we would like to highlight the paltry amount of credits made available.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
The allocation for administrative expenses is decidedly paltry at a mere 5 %.
From Europarl Parallel Corpus - English
The blow is softened at times by the "well maintained" payment, but that is a paltry sum compared with the full market value.
From the
Hansard archive