All 11 Uses of
trifle
in
Anna Karenina
- In the same way Levin in his heart despised the town mode of life of his friend, and his official duties, which he laughed at, and regarded as trifling.†
Part 1 (definition 2) *
- Stepan Arkadyevitch had gone down to his room, undressed, again washed, and attired in a nightshirt with goffered frills, he had got into bed, but Levin still lingered in his room, talking of various trifling matters, and not daring to ask what he wanted to know.†
Part 2 (definition 2)
- Madame Stahl talked to Kitty as to a charming child that one looks on with pleasure as on the memory of one's youth, and only once she said in passing that in all human sorrows nothing gives comfort but love and faith, and that in the sight of Christ's compassion for us no sorrow is trifling—and immediately talked of other things.†
Part 2 (definition 2)
- The trifling fact that, thinning out his rye, the old man used the rye he thinned out for his horses, specially struck Levin.†
Part 3 (definition 2)
- He doesn't understand that she's one of those women who can't trifle with their feelings.†
Part 4 (definition 1) *
- Low as was his opinion of Golenishtchev's capacity for understanding art, trifling as was the true remark upon the fidelity of the expression of Pilate as an official, and offensive as might have seemed the utterance of so unimportant an observation while nothing was said of more serious points, Mihailov was in an ecstasy of delight at this observation.†
Part 5 (definition 2)
- When one was in a good temper, and the other in a bad temper, the peace was not broken; but when both happened to be in an ill-humor, quarrels sprang up from such incomprehensibly trifling causes, that they could never remember afterwards what they had quarreled about.†
Part 5 (definition 2)
- Even in trifling matters, Sergey Ivanovitch found in her all that he wanted in his wife: she was poor and alone in the world, so she would not bring with her a mass of relations and their influence into her husband's house, as he saw now in Kitty's case.†
Part 6 (definition 2)
- For the first minute she had been offended at his jealousy; she was angry that the slightest amusement, even the most innocent, should be forbidden her; but now she would readily have sacrificed, not merely such trifles, but everything, for his peace of mind, to save him from the agony he was suffering.†
Part 6 (definition 2)
- In all operations on a large scale on this and his other estates, he kept to the simplest methods involving no risk, and in trifling details he was careful and exacting to an extreme degree.†
Part 6 (definition 2)
- " "And with what he made he'd increase his stock, or buy some land for a trifle, and let it out in lots to the peasants," Levin added, smiling.†
Part 6 (definition 2)
Definitions:
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(1) (trifle with as in: trifle with her affections) to treat somebody or something thoughtlessly or without respect
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(2) (trifle as in: a trifling matter) something of small importance; or a small quantity