noun
definition
(usually in the plural) A little schoolboy, either in grade or size.
definition
A class or school for young schoolboys.
definition
An outhouse: an outbuilding used as a lavatory.
adjective
definition
Little, small, secondary in rank or importance.
definition
Insignificant, trifling, or inconsiderable.
example
a petty fault
definition
Narrow-minded, small-minded.
definition
Begrudging in nature, especially over insignificant matters.
example
That corporation is only slightly pettier than they are greedy, and they are overdue to reap the consequences.
Examples of petty in a Sentence
All the petty supervising establishments are composed of convicts.
In Wischau itself, a petty German town, Rostov saw the Emperor again.
They acted also as police courts in the case of petty thefts, breaches of the peace and the like.
Behind the College is the Royal Hospital School, where woo boys, sons of petty officers and seamen, are boarded.
He had annihilated the petty kings of the South, had crushed the aristocracy, enforced the acceptance of Christianity throughout the kingdom, asserted his suzerainty in the Orkney Islands, had humbled the king of Sweden and married his daughter in his despite, and had conducted a successful raid on Denmark.
There is no step, no crime or petty fraud he commits, which in the mouths of those around him is not at once represented as a great deed.
Henceforward the petty states of Syria were at all times subject to one or other of the great world-empires, and were still in dispute between Babylonia and Egypt as late as Necho.
It wasn't like him to be so petty.
The mountaineers excel also in a variety of petty trades.
Sir William Petty, the economist (1623-1687), urged the establishment of ergastula literaria for instruction of a purely practical kind.
In the following year a form of self-government was established, but was once more followed by internal strife among the petty chieftains.
He had equipped himself with a mental telescope and looked into remote space, where petty worldliness hiding itself in misty distance had seemed to him great and infinite merely because it was not clearly seen.
In some cases, taking out a petty cash fund from each paycheck and putting that cash in your wallet gives you the freedom to spend that money on what you want without damaging your ability to pay your bills.
Just always be nice and kind, and don't be petty.
The Flavor of Love has given us some of television's biggest cat fights (Pumpkin and New York, anyone??), but Like Dat seemed to rise above all the petty bickering.
If you're a Barry White fan, you can thank this song - White reportedly heard the song on a radio while he was in jail and was so moved by it that he decided to give up petty crime and start a career as a musician.
The staff is comprised of former convicts, from bank robbers to petty thieves, with no real prior cooking skills.
Alas for his father's intentions, the Heralds are notably more tolerant of diversity than the petty landowners.
For example, the working khaki uniform worn by officers and chief petty officers on ship is not only comfortable for everyday wear but also fire resistant, an added protection during wartime.
Service Uniforms - Used when "underway" or for everyday duty, these are usually khaki for officers and Chief Petty Officers, or service whites for enlisted.
All my petty prejudices should disappear..."
Officers and Chief Petty Officers wear these as needed.
But a great Bactrian empire certainly never existed; the Bactrians and their neighbours were in old times ruled by petty local kings, one of whom was Vishtaspa, the protector of Zoroaster.
Carlyle's constitutional irritability made him intensely sensitive to petty annoyances.
It was, undoubtedly, a great and heroic achievement for the ruler of a petty state like Gelderland thus to assert and maintain his independence for a long period against the overwhelming power of the house of Austria.
Not a rough prophet in the desert like John, not a leader striking for political freedom, not a pretender aiming at the petty throne of the Herods, not even a great rabbi, building on the patriotic foundation of the Pharisees who had secured the national life by a new devotion to the ancient law.
He devoted himself to philosophical trifling, petty administrative and judicial details, while his craze for economy developed into avarice.
The petty kings naturally recognize the identity of the Pharaoh, and they hail him as their god and identify him with the heads of their own pantheon.
How the small rival districts with their petty kings were united Hebrew into a kingdom under a single head is a disputed question; the stages from the half-Hittite, half-Egyptian land to the independent Hebrew state with its national god are an unsolved problem.
Abdur Rahman executed or exiled all those whose political influence he saw reason to fear, or of whose disaffection he had the slightest suspicion; his administration was severe and his punishments were cruel; but undoubtedly he put down disorder, stopped the petty tyranny of local chiefs and brought violent crime under some effective control in the districts.
The land was not held by private owners but by occupiers under the petty corporation; the revenue was not due from individuals, but from the community represented by its head-man.
Crowds of petty traders attend, bringing all those miscellaneous articles that can be packed into a pedlar's wallet; and the neighbouring villagers look forward to the occasion to satisfy alike their curiosity and their household wants.
He had transferred much territory to chiefs and confederacies devoted to his cause; every petty court had its Greek faction; and the detachments which he left behind at various positions, from the Afghan frontier to the Beas, and from near the base of the Himalaya to the Sind delta, were visible pledges of his return.
Humayun was driven as an exile into Persia; and, while he was flying through the desert of Sind, his son Akbar was born to him in the petty fortress of Umarkot.
Shut off by the line of Decline of the the Ghats from Mahommedan India of that day, they Portu- were able to dominate the petty chiefs of Malabar, guese.
At the present time the Dutch flag flies nowhere on the mainland of India, though the quaint houses and regular canals at Chinsura, Negapatam, Jaffna, and many petty ports on the Coromandel and Malabar coasts remind the traveller of familiar scenes in the Netherlands.
About the same time in the extreme north the post of British resident in Gilgit was re-established, and the supremacy of Kashmir over the adjoining petty chiefships of Hunza-Nagar was enforced (1891-1892).
It was " divided among petty kings and other lords with fewer vassals who are called inkosis or fumes."
Those under small jurisdictions in the boroughs and under the petty corporate bodies continued open to the strongest reprobation, and thus remained until they were swept away by the measure which brought about the reform of the municipal corporations in 1835.
Prison management is essentially a local concern, but some general features are common to all states, such as the rule that while petty offenders and prisoners awaiting trial are under county and city jurisdiction, the state takes charge of all persons convicted of serious crimes.
It is almost incredible that Moawiya out of petty jealousy would have deprived himself of one of his best men.
Mahommed (afterwards caliph), governor of Armenia and Azerbaijan (Adherbaijan), succeeded in repelling the Khazars, imposing peace on the petty princes of the eastern Caucasus, and consolidating the Arab power in that quarter.
The personnel comprises about 465 officers, including those of the staff, and 4000 petty officers and men.
Such time as the officials could spare from the main object of enriching themselves by extortion and corruption was given up to endless official and religious ceremonies and to petty disputes of etiquette and precedence.
We now come to a new period in Persian history, when the numerous, petty dynasties which succeeded the Seliuks were all swallowed up in the great Mongcl invasion.
It would appear, however, that the sceptre was quietly transmitted to Abdulla Khan, the fourth in descent from Kambar, who, being an intrepid and ambitious soldier, turned his thoughts towards the conquest of Kach Gandava, then held by different petty chiefs under the authority of the nawabs of Sind.
At the beginning of his reign the religious fervour which had sustained the Almoravide dynasty was rapidly subsiding; in Portugal independent Moorish chiefs ruled over cities and petty states, ignoring the central government; in Africa the Almohades were destroying the remnants of the Almoravide power.
Its representatives continued for some time to claim the sovereignty; but the country was practically very much in the condition of Germany at about the same time - chieftains of almost independent power ruled from their castles on the hill-tops over the adjacent valleys, engaged in petty wars, and conducted plundering expeditions against the neighbouring tenants, whilst the great abbeys were places of refuge for the studious or religious, and their heads were the only rivals to the barons in social state, and in many respects the only protectors and friends of the people.
It was the rule of some thirty-five or thirty-six petty tyrants, under whose oppression and private wars even the invaders suffered.
The great natural strength of the site protected it against petty assailants; but, like other towns in that region, it has known many masters - Lydians, Persians, the kings of Pergamum, Romans and Ottoman Turks.