trivial

CEFRB2

/ˈtɹɪv.i.əl/

adjective

Türkçe translations

Translating…

In plain English

  1. 01

    adjective

    Not important, serious, or worth much attention.

  2. 02

    adjective

    Extra detail

    Commonplace, ordinary.

Examples

  • Mr Yoshimoto taught us many trivial matters.

  • Such a trivial thing is out of the question.

At a glance

Sits at B2 on the CEFR scale

Senses
5
Parts of speech
1
Citations
5
Synonyms
5

Also pronounced

  • /ˈtɹɪv.jəl/

Deep Dive

adjective

Extra meanings
  1. Easy; requiring little skill or effort.

  2. Ignorable; of little significance or value.

  3. Concerned with or involving trivia.

More examples

In context
  • In fact, the influence of signage in a certain area may exist anywhere on a continuum from profoundly effective to utterly trivial or completely insignificant, irrespective of the intent motivating the signs.

  • "All which details, I have no doubt, Jones, who reads this book at his Club, will pronounce to be excessively foolish, trivial, twaddling, and ultra-sentimental."

  • As a scholar, meantime, he was trivial, and incapable of labour.

Quick test

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Nearby

Origin

adjective

PIE word *tréyes * From Latin triviālis (“appropriate to the street-corner, commonplace, vulgar”), from trivium (“place where three roads meet”). Compare trivium, trivia. * From the distinction between trivium (“the lower division of the liberal arts; grammar, logic and rhetoric”) and quadrivium (“the higher division of the seven liberal arts in the Middle Ages, composed of geometry, astronomy, arithmetic, and music”).