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a trifle

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Adverb

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a trifle (not comparable)

  1. 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[1], 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![2]:
      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, chapter 4, in On the Beach[3], New York: William Morrow:
      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,[4]
      “Let’s get on with it,” Sikiokuu replied, a trifle impatiently.

Synonyms

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Anagrams

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