petty

adj

1. (derogatory, often)Having little or no importance.

   “a petty fault    petty squabbles”

   “Your minde is toſſing on the Ocean, / There vvhere your Argoſies vvith portly ſayle, / Like Signiors and rich Burgars on the flood, / Or as it vvere the Pageants of the ſea, / Doe ouer-peere the petty traffiquers / That curſie to them, do them reuerence / As they flie by them vvith their vvouen vvings.”

   “I could have liv'd like Hengiſt, King of Kent, / London, York, Lincoln, and VVincheſter, / Under the povver of my Command, the portion / Of my moſt juſt deſert, enjoyed novv / By pettier Deſervers.”

   “His birth, perhaps, ſome petty Village hides, / And ſets his Cradle out of Fortune's way: […]”

   “Yea, he did hold me to it at that rate alſo, about a great many more things than here I relate; as, that it was a ſhame to ſit vvhining and mourning under a Sermon, and a ſhame to come ſighing and groaning home. That it was a ſhame to ask my Neighbour forgiveneſs for petty faults, or to make restitution vvhere I have taken from any: […]”

2. (derogatory, often)Of persons or their behaviour: marked by or reflective of undesirably limited interests, sympathies, or views; begrudging, selfish, small-minded; also, preoccupied with subjects having little or no importance and not mindful of broader concerns.

   “Such literature may well be anathema to those who are too docile and petty for their own good.”

   “That corporation is only slightly pettier than they are greedy, and they are overdue to reap the consequences.”

   “[C]ommonly, it is leſſe diſhonourable, to abridge pettie Charges, then to ſtoope to pettie Gettings.”

   “I will give you the slightest, pettiest instance of the hindrance which the pettiest official can make out here, if so minded. […] [T]he Senior Purveyor at Balaclava refuses to cash my Cheques, for no other reason discoverable than the love of petty annoyance & the hope of injuring my credit, in the minds of ignorant servants.”

   “He began to walk up and down the room, and she grew more and more vexed at his dignified behaviour. She had counted on his being petty. It would have made things easier for her. By a cruel irony she was drawing but all that was finest in his disposition.”

3. (derogatory, informal, often)Inclined to cause frustration or annoyance to others out of spite over minor grievances; extremely vindictive.

   “My cousin is so petty—I forgot his birthday and he's been making snarky comments all week.”

   “All of the horrors that happen in the book are based on real incidents, including the burning of her father's books in their front yard. "It was just a very petty, ugly thing to do, to say 'Fuck you' to academics and intellectuals," she says. " I can't imagine losing my books, the books I love."”

   “Your manager is just being petty. Ignore her silly provocations.”

4. (historical)Of or relating to the lowest grade or level of school; junior, primary.

   “Friends are separated for long portions of time even while they live; at last they take their leave for ever: although, I remember, when you left me in the petty form at Westminster, I soon afterwards found you in a higher remove: and this world is only the petty form of the universe; so I not only expect to pass a social hour with you here, but am in hopes of a merry meeting in a better place; […]”

   “This finishes their education in the under school, in which they have now been three years and a half, and they are next moved into the upper, and probably at the age of ten or eleven; six or seven being the age at which boys are generally sent into the petty form.”

   “[T]he feoffees should cause the boys to be put to some petty school to learn to read English till they attain 13, and to instruct them in some part of God's true religion.”

   “[B]y the assistance of that truly Christian gentlewoman, the Lady Elizabeth Hastings, he increased the number of petty schools throughout the island.”

5. Little or small in size.

   “To morrow, and to morrow, and to morrow, / Creepes in this petty pace from day to day, / To the laſt Syllable of Recorded time: / And all our yeſterdayes, haue lighted Fooles / The way to duſty death.”

6. Secondary in importance or rank; minor, subordinate.

   “petty cash    petty officer”

   “3. Out[law]. […] My ſelfe vvas from Verona baniſhed, / For practiſing to ſteale avvay a Lady, / And heire and Neece, alide vnto the Duke. / […] / 1. Out[law]. And I, for ſuch like petty crimes as theſe.”

   “With his [Robert Brown's] assistant, Richard Harrison, a petty pedagogue, they inveighed against bishops, ecclesiastical courts, ceremonies, ordination of ministers, and what not; fancying here on earth a platform of a perfect church, without any faults (understand it thus, save those that are made by themselves) therein.”

   “Fearleſs of danger, like a petty God / I walk'd about admir'd of all and dreaded / On hoſtile ground, none daring my affront.”

   “At the time the poem we are now treating of was written, the dissensions of the barons, who were then so many petty princes, ran very high, whether they quarrelled among themselves, or with their neighbours, and produced unspeakable calamities to the country.”

noun

1. (dialectal, euphemistic, informal)An outbuilding used as a lavatory; an outhouse, a privy.

   “If these houses had been built by his Lordship every one would have had his petty, at all events dividing the odour & also having a chance that some of the occupiers would clean out—but a common occupation is nobody's business, unless the owner of all the buildings takes it in hand.”

   “Cottages occupied by Betty Hines and others; petty in a very filthy state, wants walling. Two petties belonging to Mr. James Parr to be walled, and one next Thomas Wilkinson's to be removed further off.”

2. (historical)A class or school for young schoolboys.

   “[…] I took my seat in what was denominated, "The Idle Class", that is, at the very bottom of the school, where all those who have not received some previous instruction in Latin are placed. I however soon got out of that disgraceful and ignorant form, passed with rapidity and eclat the under and upper petty, and entered into the upper first, […]”

   “[S]uch a difference of age between lads at a public school puts intimacy out of the question—a junior ensign being no more familiar with the commander-in-chief at the Horse-Guards; or a barrister on his first circuit with my Lord Chief Justice on the bench, than the newly-breeched infant in the Petties with a senior boy in a tailed coat.”

3. (also, figuratively, in-plural, obsolete)A little schoolboy, either in grade or size.

   “[S]ome of them, which were the Petties and Punies of that ſchoole, whereof old Martin [Marprelate] was the maſter; though then he was but as ſome blinde and obſcure pariſh Clarke that taught in the Belfrie, not preſuming, as hee doth nowe, to preſſe into the Church, (that place in reſpect of the appurtenances being fitter for him) began but rawly with their little a, b, c.”

   “As the maiden therefore vvas comming into the market place, (for there vvere the ſchools for peties kept, of reading and vvriting) the Decemvirs man (a broker to ſerve his maſters luſt) laid hold upon her, avovving that ſhe vvas his bond-ſervants daughter, and therefore his bond-maid: commanding her to follovv him, and threatning beſides, that if ſhe made any ſtays, he vvould have her avvay perforce.”

name

1. A surname.