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Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
trivia
noun
EXAMPLES FROM OTHER ENTRIES
▪ I find that I can remember trivia such as old sports results, but I can't remember the things that I really need.
▪ News programs tend to focus on trivia at the expense of serious issues.
▪ The magazine was full of trivia and gossip.
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Have we become the Huxleyan mob irretrievably affixed to the tube and addicted to its terror and its trivia?
▪ I had been dealing with trivia but this was different.
▪ It looked like a mock-up set in a middle-class soap opera, shining with domestic trivia, very clean.
▪ It will highlight 1, 000 courses, some obscure, and delve into history, trivia and tradition.
▪ My memories are full of anecdotes and trivia, not stultified by rigid dogma.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
trivia

"trivialities, bits of information of little consequence," by 1932, from the title of a popular book by U.S.-born British aphorist Logan Pearsall Smith (1865-1946) first published in 1902 but popularized in 1918 (with "More Trivia" following in 1921 and a collected edition including both in 1933), containing short essays often tied to observation of small things and commonplace moments. Trivia is Latin, plural of trivium "place where three roads meet;" in transferred use, "an open place, a public place." The adjectival form of this, trivialis, meant "public," hence "common, commonplace" (see trivial). The Romans also had trivius dea, the "goddess of three ways," another name for Hecate, perhaps originally in her triple aspect (Selene/Diana/Proserpine), but also as the especial divinity of crossroads (Virgil has "Nocturnisque hecate triviis ululata per urbes"). John Gay took this arbitrarily as the name of a goddess of streets and roads for his mock Georgic "Trivia: Or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London" (1716); Smith writes in his autobiography that he got the title from Gay.\n\nI KNOW too much; I have stuffed too many of the facts of History and Science into my intellectuals. My eyes have grown dim over books; believing in geological periods, cave dwellers, Chinese Dynasties, and the fixed stars has prematurely aged me.

["Trivia," 1918 edition]

\nThen noted c.1965 as an informal fad game among college students wherein one asked questions about useless bits of information from popular culture ("What was Donald Duck's address?") and others vied to answer first.\n\nNobody really wins in this game which concentrates on sports, comics and television. Everyone knows that Amos's wife on the "Amos 'n' Andy Show" is Ruby, but who knows that she is from Marietta, Georgia? Trivia players do. They also know the fourth man in the infield of Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance, the Canadian who shot down Baron Von Richtofen, and can name ten Hardy Boy books.

["Princeton Alumni Weekly," Nov. 9, 1965]

\nThe board game Trivial Pursuit was released 1982 and was a craze in U.S. for several years thereafter.
Wiktionary
trivia

n. 1 insignificant trifles of little importance, especially items of unimportant information 2 A quiz game that involves obscure facts. 3 (plural of trivium English)Category:English plurals

WordNet
trivia

n. something of small importance [syn: triviality, trifle, small beer]

trivia

See trivium

Wikipedia
Trivia (disambiguation)

Trivia may mean

  1. One of three lower ( liberal arts)
  2. a sense of insignificance, especially with fact use in games, conversation, or entertainment
  3. something new (obsolete usage)

Trivia may also refer to:

  • Trivia (poem), by John Gay
  • Trivia (mythology), the Roman equivalent of the Greek goddess Hecate
  • Trivia (gastropod), a genus of small sea snails in the family Triviidae
  • Trivia (album), a 1986 album by Utopia
  • Trivial Pursuit, a board game created by Chris Haney

Trivial (adjective) may refer to:

  • Triviality (mathematics), technical simplicity of some aspects of proofs
  • Trivial name, a type of name in chemical nomenclature
  • Quantum triviality, a trait of classical theories that become trivial when viewed in quantum terms
  • Trivial (film), a 2007 film

Trivium (an obsolete singular form of Trivia) may refer to:

  • Trivium (band), an American metal band from Orlando, Florida
    • Trivium (demo), a 2003 demo of the American metal band Trivium
  • Trivium (cipher), a synchronous stream cipher
  • Trivium (education), in medieval educational theory
Trivia (poem)

Trivia ( 1716) is a poem by John Gay. The full title of the poem is Trivia, or The Art of Walking the Streets of London, and it takes its name from the "goddess of crossroads", Trivia.

The poem is loosely based on the Satires of Juvenal, and is a poem in heroic couplets, and though based on Juvenal, attains a Horatian satirical manner.

The length of the entire poem is approximately 1000 lines, and it is in three books.

Trivia

Trivia refers to bits of information, often of little importance.

Trivia (gastropod)

Trivia is a genus of small sea snails, marine gastropod molluscs in the family Triviidae, the trivias.

These are known in Britain as "cowries". The shell of these species does superficially resemble the shell of a very small cowry, but Trivia species are not very closely related to true cowries.

Trivia (album)

Trivia is a compilation album by the rock group Utopia, released in 1986. It consists of tracks from their albums Utopia, Oblivion and POV, as well as two new tracks, "Fix Your Gaze" and "Monument".

Trivia (mythology)

Trivia in Roman mythology was the goddess who "haunted crossroads, graveyards, and was the goddess of sorcery and witchcraft, she wandered about at night and was seen only by the barking of dogs who told of her approach." She was the equivalent of the Greek goddess Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft, the three-way crossroads and the harvest moon. She was an underworld Titan-goddess who assisted Jove in the Titanomachy and was therefore able to keep her powers. She was a friend of Ceres and helped her to find her daughter Proserpina. As a part of her role as an underworld goddess, she was known as the Queen of Ghosts. Although she helped Ceres to find her daughter, she was also known to steal young maidens to assist her in her powers. These women later became nymphs.

Her association for Romans of the first century BCE with Artemis was so thorough that Lucretius identifies the altar of the goddess at the sacrifice of Iphianassa ( Iphigeneia) in Aulis as Triviai virginis aram.

Trivia (The Office)

"Trivia" is the eleventh episode of the eighth season of the American comedy television series The Office, and the show's 163rd episode overall. The episode originally aired on NBC in the United States on January 12, 2012. It was written by Steve Hely and was directed by executive producer B. J. Novak.

In this episode, Oscar Martinez ( Oscar Nunez) reveals that he is partaking in a trivia contest in Philadelphia and Andy Bernard ( Ed Helms) tries to get the entire office involved. Meanwhile, Dwight Schrute ( Rainn Wilson) journeys to Florida and meets with his boss, Robert California ( James Spader), in order to explore other job opportunities.

After airing, the episode sparked a debate among fans, as well as critics, as to whether former leading actor Steve Carell had made an uncredited cameo as a member of an opposing trivia team. NBC later denied that Carell had made an appearance and stated that the situation was just a coincidence. "Trivia" received mostly positive reviews from critics, with many noting that the episode marked an improvement from the first part of the season. Despite this, several reviews were critical of the Dwight sub-plot. According to Nielsen Media Research, "Trivia" drew 5.87 million viewers and received a 2.9 rating/7% share in the 18–49 demographic, staying relatively even with the previous three episodes, " Christmas Wishes", " Gettysburg" and " Mrs. California". It ranked third in its timeslot and was the highest-rated NBC series of the night.

Usage examples of "trivia".

Women tell me that my encyclopedic knowledge of celebrity trivia is one of the most attractive things about me.

Why else would he say that he wanted her to test his trivia knowledge, having already informed her that his trivia knowledge was something that women found attractive about him?

She was unusually observant lately, especially sensitive to trivia, to atmosphere.

He wrote to Lizzie, inconsequential letters with formal endearments, and received volumes of gossipy pages in response, filled with trivia about Florence, and The Forks, and the extravagances of her mother.

Indeed, the whole issue of black and white, slave and free, was confusing to her, as was much of the rest of the modem world, and she no longer collected gossip or trivia or scandal, because without William she had no one to tell it to, and without darkies she could not go visiting.

And maybe that was the very best definition of loneliness, that those bits of trivia worth recounting set up the resonances of lives shared over the years so that the two of you looked at the incident from the same angle of reference, with no explanations needed.

And Sherman kept telling him not to worry about anything, not to try to get into the trivia of operations, telling him he had far more important work as the spiritual leader of the worldwide flock.

Foy, who are involved in the longest-running trivia contest in our fine county.

Not the woman with an incredible gift for baseball trivia, amazing freckles, and a sexy mouth that gives good blow.

We memorize Passover trivia and go over the items Dad will point to on the seder plate.

He began to wish the pig had eaten MacDonald after all, but put the unworthy thought from his mind and drank the beer Heinrich brought, chatting of inconsequence and trivia until it was polite to take his leave.

Alphonse listened to a tiny digital radio with a pocket phone at the ready, waiting for the ImpacNewzRadio Daily Trivia Question.

That was the number he remembered, but because he had no head for figures or trivia he pulled a sheet of paper out of his chinos pocket and verified it.

Now ARPAnet had mushroomed into Internet, and half of America was sifting through the mountains of hard information and soft trivia carried along the phone and cable wires.

This dabbling with the intricate trivia of human society irked him, and the demon bubbling below the surface was never far away, rising to taunt him.