All 15 Uses of
trifle
in
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
- Tom was a trifle disconcerted.†
Chpt 4 (definition 1)
- Then Tom traded a couple of white alleys for three red tickets, and some small trifle or other for a couple of blue ones.†
Chpt 4 (definition 1)
- He was restive all through it; he kept tally of the details of the prayer, unconsciously —for he was not listening, but he knew the ground of old, and the clergyman's regular route over it—and when a little trifle of new matter was interlarded, his ear detected it and his whole nature resented it; he considered additions unfair, and scoundrelly.†
Chpt 5 (definition 1)
- He moped to school gloomy and sad, and took his flogging, along with Joe Harper, for playing hookey the day before, with the air of one whose heart was busy with heavier woes and wholly dead to trifles.†
Chpt 10 (definition 1)
- The jail was a trifling little brick den that stood in a marsh at the edge of the village, and no guards were afforded for it; indeed, it was seldom occupied.†
Chpt 11 (definition 1)
- ...at a point where the Mississippi River was a trifle over a mile wide,
Chpt 13 (definition 1) *trifle = little (of small quantity or importance)
- About midnight Tom arrived with a boiled ham and a few trifles, and stopped in a dense undergrowth on a small bluff overlooking the meeting-place.†
Chpt 13 (definition 1)
- They were perfectly round white things a trifle smaller than an English walnut.†
Chpt 16 (definition 1)
- But presently it began to flag a trifle, and grow disjointed.†
Chpt 16 (definition 1)
- Then quite a group of boys and girls—playmates of Tom's and Joe's—came by, and stood looking over the paling fence and talking in reverent tones of how Tom did so-and-so the last time they saw him, and how Joe said this and that small trifle (pregnant with awful prophecy, as they could easily see now!†
Chpt 17 (definition 1)
- A very little boy stood up and sheepishly recited, "You'd scarce expect one of my age to speak in public on the stage," etc.—accompanying himself with the painfully exact and spasmodic gestures which a machine might have used—supposing the machine to be a trifle out of order.†
Chpt 21 (definition 1)
- Speak up—just a trifle louder.†
Chpt 23 (definition 1)
- The thing failed this time, however, so the boys shouldered their tools and went away feeling that they had not trifled with fortune, but had fulfilled all the requirements that belong to the business of treasure-hunting.
Chpt 26 (definition 2) *trifled with = treated thoughtlessly or without respect
- Presently the hide-and-seek frolicking began, and Tom and Becky engaged in it with zeal until the exertion began to grow a trifle wearisome; then they wandered down a sinuous avenue holding their candles aloft and reading the tangled web-work of names, dates, post-office addresses, and mottoes with which the rocky walls had been frescoed (in candle-smoke).†
Chpt 31 (definition 1)
- A trifle after noon the boys borrowed a small skiff from a citizen who was absent, and got under way at once.†
Chpt 33 (definition 1)
Definitions:
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(1) (trifle as in: a trifling matter) something of small importance; or a small quantity
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(2) (trifle with as in: trifle with her affections) to treat somebody or something thoughtlessly or without respect