All 19 Uses of
trifle
in
The Brothers Karamazov
- The modeling of her face might be said to be too broad, and the lower jaw was set a trifle forward.†
Chpt 3 *
- Some person or thing seemed to be standing out somewhere, just as something will sometimes obtrude itself upon the eye, and though one may be so busy with work or conversation that for a long time one does not notice it, yet it irritates and almost torments one till at last one realizes, and removes the offending object, often quite a trifling and ridiculous one—some article left about in the wrong place, a handkerchief on the floor, a book not replaced on the shelf, and so on.†
Chpt 5
- It was not that she lent money on interest, but it was known, for instance, that she had for some time past, in partnership with old Karamazov, actually invested in the purchase of bad debts for a trifle, a tenth of their nominal value, and afterwards had made out of them ten times their value.†
Chpt 7
- But Mitya had no time to pause over such trifles.†
Chpt 8
- To business, gentlemen, to business, and don't rummage in my soul; don't tease me with trifles, but only ask me about facts and what matters, and I will satisfy you at once.†
Chpt 9
- I mean, beginning from some miserable trifle, how I got up, what I had for breakfast, how I spat, and where I spat, and so distracting the attention of the criminal, suddenly stun him with an overwhelming question, 'Whom did you murder?†
Chpt 9
- Not because I couldn't, or because I shouldn't dare, or because it would be damaging, for it's all a paltry matter and absolutely trifling, but—I won't, because it's a matter of principle: that's my private life, and I won't allow any intrusion into my private life.†
Chpt 9
- To make things worse the prosecutor exasperated him, as though intentionally, by vexatious interruptions about "trifling points."†
Chpt 9
- The prosecutor was satisfied: "I've provoked the nervous fellow by 'trifles' and he has said more than he meant to."†
Chpt 9
- Nikolay Parfenovitch was too well pleased with them, as it was, and did not want to worry them with trifles, moreover, it was nothing but a foolish, drunken quarrel over cards.†
Chpt 9
- Grushenka had grown used to him, and coming back from seeing Mitya (whom she had begun to visit in prison before she was really well) she would sit down and begin talking to "Maximushka" about trifling matters, to keep her from thinking of her sorrow.†
Chpt 11
- And you know, Alyosha, I am constantly wondering at him—with this awful thing hanging over him, he sometimes laughs at such trifles as though he were a baby himself.†
Chpt 11
- This trifling circumstance suddenly redoubled Ivan's anger: "A creature like that and wearing spectacles!"†
Chpt 11
- Joking apart, it doesn't matter to me, scold if you like, though it's better to be a trifle more polite even to me.†
Chpt 11
- The worst of such stories is that the triumphant romancers can always be put to confusion and crushed by the very details in which real life is so rich and which these unhappy and involuntary story-tellers neglect as insignificant trifles.†
Chpt 12
- Oh, they have no thought to spare for such details, their minds are concentrated on their grand invention as a whole, and fancy any one daring to pull them up for a trifle!†
Chpt 12
- At the most terrible moments of man's life, for instance when he is being led to execution, he remembers just such trifles.†
Chpt 12
- "But, gentlemen of the jury, why do I tell you all this, all these details, trifles?" cried Ippolit Kirillovitch suddenly.†
Chpt 12
- All of us knew that the prosecutor received Mitya against his will, solely because he had somehow interested his wife—a lady of the highest virtue and moral worth, but fanciful, capricious, and fond of opposing her husband, especially in trifles.†
Chpt 12
Definition:
-
(trifle as in: a trifling matter) something of small importance; or a small quantity