What is "paltry"

Usage examples of "paltry".

A lack of sympathy with certain liturgical expressions, a fear of being hypocritical, of being believed to hold the orthodox position in its entirety, justifies a man in not entering the ministry of the Church, even if he desires on general grounds to do so, but these are paltry motives for cutting oneself off from communion with believers.

Therefore in his preaching, if the word used for the lofty, simple utterance of divine messengers, may without offence be misapplied to his paltry memorizations, his main thought was always whether the said lady was justly appreciating the eloquence and wisdom with which he meant to impress her--while in fact he remained incapable of understanding how deep her natural insight penetrated both him and his pretensions.

That paltry place, which, to round a sentence, was pompously styled the ancient Joppa, held out only to the 6th of March, when it was taken by storm, and given up to pillage.

I was contracted last summer by Random House to write, in return for their usual paltry fee, some prefatory remarks for this book.

Had Reas exacted an hundred gold marks instead of two paltry marks of silver, I should willingly have given him them.

Vol, and by my hoep and secreat intilligence these were thayr entire flete that was nowe al sonken and putt to distruccioun by mee, and trewly hit was a paltry werk and light, so few they were agaynst my foarce agaynst them, I dyd comme alande att the place hyghte Grunda by the northe perte of the frith wher the watere owt of Breakingdal falleth into the se.

My reward was paltry, for she announced that I should next go on to backstitch, but I was given leave to take a walk, and availed myself of it: up and down Cheapside to take the air.

He might strangle her in fury or in possessive rage, but he would not send a thief to take her from his house, nor would he deal with scum from a barrelhouse for so paltry a reason.

One bulb flogged itself, leaking a paltry candlepower that barely made the walls.

Jonathan doubted that such a thing could be and blushed a great deal, assuring them that his cheeses were paltry things at best when compared to dwarf cheeses.

I would not willingly waste upon small arguments, when I see more and more clearly that our paltriest faults and dishonesties need one and the same enormous cure.

A few oil lamps and a hair of ugly purple candies threw their paltry light over the shapeless, afghan-strewn furniture, the chaotic, knickknacky shelves.

How paltry it is for people to laugh and sneer whenever a poor man marries a rich woman.

Madame Millefleur decided this was not the ideal time to ask Woodbridge for the return of her dowry, paltry though it was, and played least in sight.

If to throw off the shackles of Old World pedantry, and defy the paltry rules and examples of grammarians and rhetoricians, is the special province and the chartered privilege of the American writer, Timothy Dexter is the founder of a new school, which tramples under foot the conventionalities that hampered and subjugated the faculties of the poets, the dramatists, the historians, essayists, story-tellers, orators, of the worn-out races which have preceded the great American people.