trifle

1. 1.

   waste time; spend one's time idly or inefficiently

   Synonymspiddlewantonwanton awaypiddle away

   Broaderspend
2. 2.

   act frivolously

   Synonymsfrivol

   Broaderact
3. 3.

   consider not very seriously

   “He is trifling with her”

   “She plays with the thought of moving to Tasmania”

   Synonymsdallyplay

   Broaderconsider

Other forms of trifle

plural

trifles·

past tense

trifled·

present participle

trifling·

Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.

Questions about trifle

What does trifle mean?

trifle means "a cold pudding made of layers of sponge cake spread with fruit or jelly; may be decorated with nuts, cream, or chocolate". That is the primary sense; the word has 6 in total, listed in full on this page.

How many syllables are in trifle?

trifle has 2 syllables: tri-fle. The stress falls on "tri". In IPA it is /ˈtɹaɪfəl/.

What is another word for trifle?

Close synonyms include triviality, triviality, trivia, small beer, piddle. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is trifle a common word?

trifle is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.