triflein a sentencegrouped by contextual meaning
trifle as in: a trifling matter
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We all agree with the goal, but how to achieve it is not a trifling matter.
trifling = unimportant
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We just need a trifle more time.
trifle = small amount
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Don't waste my time with trifling matters.
trifling = unimportant
- Dad said we should stay vigilant, but by winter my attention had shifted back to the trifling dramas of my own life. (source)
- He said that the POWs had complained of "trifle things" and had used epithets to refer to the Japanese. (source)
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The third bedroom was a trifle small, but it would do just fine for Turtle.
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trifle = little
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And in exchange for these sorts of trifles, we could prove generous to a fault….
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trifles = unimportant things
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Would anyone bother with a trifling robbery when there was death at every door?
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trifling = small
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Over a handful of fluffy white kernels William relaxed a trifle.
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trifle = little
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The moon rose in the sky as Montag walked, his lips moving just a trifle.
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trifle = a small amount
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PROCTOR, a trifle unsteadily: I—am sure I do, sir.
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trifle = little
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"Those girls are trifling," DeNice said. "They're so insignificant, God can hardly see them."
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trifling = unimportant
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show 88 more with this conextual meaning
- It all just too trifling and confuse. (source)
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She felt so angry at Hecate and so tired of being manipulated by the gods that she wasn't going to let any trifling problems stand in her way.
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trifling = small
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Not just a trifle evil. Monstrously evil.
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trifle = little (in amount)
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I met him once or twice fifteen years ago, some trifling legal matter.
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trifling = unimportant
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GEORGE (A trifle abstracted): Oh, I've had it awhile.
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trifle = a little
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a trifle dizzy
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trifle = little bit
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Some did it better than others, one or two were even a trifle unsteady and looked as though they would have liked the support of a stick, but every one of them made his way right round the yard successfully.
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trifle = little
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At the gate the servant opened the door a trifle and looked out at the waiting people.
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trifle = a little
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It would be, he felt assured, no trifling ordeal.
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trifling = small
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During the four years since his puppyhood he had lived the life of a sated aristocrat; he had a fine pride in himself, was even a trifle egotistical, as country gentlemen sometimes become because of their insular situation.
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trifle = little
- Lucy's heart beat a trifle more audibly to the stethoscope, and her lungs had a perceptible movement. (source)
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She wondered why he, who did not usually trouble over trifles, made such a mountain of this molehill.
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trifles = unimportant things
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"Yes, certainly, I know that," said the doctor, a trifle sharply.
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trifle = little
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But by and by the thing dragged through, and everything was sold —everything but a little old trifling lot in the graveyard.
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trifling = something of small importance
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...for as Father says, trifles show character.
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trifles = small unimportant things
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Nothing is too small or too trifling to undergo this change, and acquire dignity thereby.
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trifling = unimportant
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...hoping to make them a LITTLE ashamed of fighting for such a trifle.
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trifle = something of small importance
- I had learned, too, the very remarkable fact, that the stem of the Usher race, all time-honored as it was, had put forth, at no period, any enduring branch; in other words, that the entire family lay in the direct line of descent, and had always, with very trifling and very temporary variation, so lain. (source)
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I never saw a more interesting creature: his eyes have generally an expression of wildness, and even madness, but there are moments when, if anyone performs an act of kindness towards him or does him any the most trifling service, his whole countenance is lighted up, as it were, with a beam of benevolence and sweetness that I never saw equalled.
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trifling = insignificant
- When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.† (source)
- Harry knew better than to think the match would be canceled; Quidditch matches weren't called off for trifles like thunderstorms.† (source)
- Ask yourself whether a young man on a murderous rampage, tearing up furniture in the home of somebody who loved antiques, would have stopped at the trifling damage he did.† (source)
- Some trifling affront.† (source)
- What are they but things, baubles, trifles, bits of stuff?† (source)
- Thank you, but I won't be spending my money on trifles," said Roran.† (source)
- Only when he was positive that Jack would say nothing of the trifling matter to the queen or the Lord of Diamonds, only when he heard the boy greedily munching on a tarty tart, did he set out after Alyss and Dodge.† (source)
- I did not like to, because the Captain said he should not be pestered over trifles; but Mrs. Phelan said this was no trifle, and no baby neither.† (source)
- You're going to ask why a billionaire should go to the trouble of swindling a trifling fifty million.† (source)
- Don't bother me with trifles," he ordered him.† (source)
- You tarried with trifles, Victim of your folly.† (source)
- Everyone put a bundle together, but don't bother with trifles...† (source)
- I accepted that danger was an essential component of the game-without it, climbing would be little different from a hundred other trifling diversions.† (source)
- My father's feelings towards the General were, naturally, those of utmost loathing; but he realized too that his employer's present business aspirations hung on the smooth running of the house party — which with some eighteen or so people expected would be no trifling affair.† (source)
- He'd dug himself in even deeper some years later by calling Taxi Driver a squalid little film from a trifling talent.† (source)
- If I can persuade a few to reveal themselves, may be able to pick up some fairy-made trifles.† (source)
- She had a thin gold ring that had been her mother's, and one or two other trifles.† (source)
- Well, he run off with that trifling Peggy—from Elyria.† (source)
- To Robert Morris he said more bluntly, "I thought it no time to stand on trifles."† (source)
- We would have been shocked, on the other hand, if Beethoven had transformed the seriousness of his quartet into the trifling joke of a four-voice canon about Dembscher's purse.† (source)
- Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the Dwarfs' knees: pies and tongues and pigeons and trifles and ices, and each Dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand.† (source)
- "A trifling detail," Chaz says.† (source)
- And this he tried to do, telling of magic and sea foam, but his knowledge was trifling.† (source)
- Her life was indeed serious, her desires were serious, and I could understand why she didn't want to mess around with some trifling bimbo who was experimenting with lesbianism just to entertain herself in prison.† (source)
- The lesser rings were only essays in the craft before it was full-grown, and to the Elven-smiths they were but trifles — yet still to my mind dangerous for mortals.† (source)
- The work they had done that morning was trifling and all they had to show for it was rough shelter and little comfort.† (source)
- He came upon a few stories I'd written—trifles, really—and took a liking to them.† (source)
- Not even the warning words in that day's Chicago Tribune drew much attention: "For days past alarm has followed alarm, but the comparatively trifling losses have familiarized us to the pealing of the Courthouse bell, and we [have] forgotten that the absence of rain for three weeks [has] left everything in so dry and inflammable a condition that a spark might set a fire which would sweep from end to end of the city."† (source)
- We were in a perpetual conversation with each other on topics both solemn and trifling.† (source)
- She said she can't be bothered with trifles.'† (source)
- When we met him at one of his stores he always had a sundry basket of treats for her, trifles from his shelves, bars of dark chocolate, exotic tropical fruits, tissue-wrapped biscotti.† (source)
- These stark monuments to millions of dollars and thousands of weary backs seemed trifling against the crown of blue sky.† (source)
- On Washington's Birthday in 1862, a captain in the 5th Alabama Infantry wrote to his mother: "How trifling were the wrongs complained of by our Revolutionary forefathers, in comparison with ours!† (source)
- Triflingly witty, Mr. McLean, but I would like you to account for your people's history of ineptitude.† (source)
- Speak to me not of trifles.† (source)
- The grin she was now grinning seemed a little inappropriate to our turbulent emotion, and her voice took on a soft, light-hearted, even trifling quality, which nonetheless, by force of its meaning, left me close to an insanity of desire.† (source)
- He did not use his shells on such trifling game.† (source)
- You shall know, Siddhartha has set harder goals for himself than such trifles, and he has reached them.† (source)
- But these are trifles.† (source)
- I swear that only to possess that one, trifling secret, I would willingly turn myself into a harmless dove for the rest of eternity!† (source)
- But I m not going to bother with trifles.† (source)
- My thoughts are running after bird's eggs, play and trifles, till I get vexed with myself.† (source)
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But are you not being a trifle naif?
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trifle = little
- Indeed he was really relieved after all to think that they had all gone without him, and without bothering to wake him up ("but with never a thank-you" he thought); and yet in a way he could not help feeling just a trifle disappointed. (source)
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Oh, it is a matter of no importance; but I don't know why you should be so warm over such a trifle.
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trifle = something of small importance
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...at a point where the Mississippi River was a trifle over a mile wide,
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trifle = little (of small quantity or importance)
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She is a trifle stouter, and her cheeks are a lovely rose-pink.
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trifle = little
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Wilson showed a trifle of irritation when he replied...
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trifle = a small amount
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and happened to raise her skirt a trifle too high above her ankles
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trifle = little (a small amount)
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As for getting the axe, that trifling business cost him no anxiety, for nothing could be easier.
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trifling = minor (unimportant or easily done)
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That is but a trifle, when a woman knows the world.
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trifle = thing of small importance
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"The Count has two-and-forty speeches," returned Mr. Rushworth, "which is no trifle."
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trifle = small thing
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Do not let us be frightened from a good deed by a trifle.
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trifle = something that is unimportant
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Such a trifle is not worth half so many words.
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trifle = small thing
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If the part is trifling she will have more credit in making something of it;
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trifling = small and unimportant
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The fatigue, too, of so long a journey, became soon no trifling evil.
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trifling = small
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The door stood a trifle ajar.
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trifle = little
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With the exception of these trifling frictions, work in Miss Stacy's little kingdom went on with regularity and smoothness.
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trifling = small
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But my soul took a wild interest in trifles, and I busied myself in endeavors to account for the error I had committed in my measurement.
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trifles = things of small importance
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No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Scrooge.
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trifle = small amount
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...and that's no trifle to say.
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trifle = small thing
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Pooh!—those were trifles.
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trifles = things of small importance
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argued about trifles
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trifles = unimportant things
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If tenderness could be ever supposed wanting, good sense and good breeding supplied its place; and as to the little irritations sometimes introduced by aunt Norris, they were short, they were trifling, they were as a drop of water to the ocean, compared with the ceaseless tumult of her present abode.
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trifling = unimportant
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a trifle more than nothing.
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trifle = little
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My trifling occupations take up my time and amuse me, and I am rewarded for any exertions by seeing none but happy, kind faces around me.
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trifling = unimportant
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This figure of the study and the cloister, as Hester Prynne's womanly fancy failed not to recall, was slightly deformed, with the left shoulder a trifle higher than the right.
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trifle = small amount
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There were trifles too, little ornaments, beautiful tokens of a continual remembrance, that must have been wrought by delicate fingers at the impulse of a fond heart.
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trifles = small things
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Reminiscences, the most trifling and immaterial, passages of infancy and school-days, sports, childish quarrels, and the little domestic traits of her maiden years, came swarming back upon her, intermingled with recollections of whatever was gravest in her subsequent life; one picture precisely as vivid as another; as if all were of similar importance, or all alike a play.
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trifling = unimportant
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trifle with as in: trifle with her affections
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She is not a woman to trifle with or ignore.
trifle with = treat thoughtlessly or without respect
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The European Parliament refuses to be trifled with.
trifled with = treated without respect
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As someone who could make them famous among their peers, I was no longer a person to be trifled with.
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trifled with = treated thoughtlessly or without respect
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Kitty might be the baby of the family, but she is not someone to trifle with.
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trifle with = treat thoughtlessly or without respect
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But there were dangers in trifling with wildling women.
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trifling with = treating thoughtlessly or without respect
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Gus wasn't a man to trifle with, especially when it came to money.
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trifle with = treat thoughtlessly or without respect
- But a Judge may not trifle with the Law because the society is defective. (source)
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To my surprise, Van Helsing rose up and said with all his sternness, his iron jaw set and his bushy eyebrows meeting, "No trifling with me!"
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trifling with = treating without respect
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Confident as I am that you will not trifle with this appeal, my heart sinks and my hand trembles at the bare thought of such a possibility.
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trifle with = treat thoughtlessly or without respect
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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.
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trifled with = treated thoughtlessly or without respect
- ...she was not to be trifled with. (source)
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show 89 more with this conextual meaning
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A mockery, indeed, but in which his soul trifled with itself!
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trifled with = treated thoughtlessly
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I must not be trifled with, and I demand an answer.
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trifled with = treated thoughtlessly or without respect
- They were not to be trifled with.† (source)
- "In agreeing to adopt you," he said, "I have become your father, and as your father I am not someone to be trifled with.† (source)
- Because he'd wished my mother dead, my father said, God had punished him; God had taught Pastor Merrill not to trifle with prayer.† (source)
- I will not be trifled with.† (source)
- A Syrian in an American prison in 2005-this was not to be trifled with.† (source)
- My point, little fairy man, is that I am not someone to be trifled with.† (source)
- It is unwise to trifle with those who have such abilities.† (source)
- A mother's love, that's not somethin' to be trifled with.† (source)
- Parting so unsentimentally with his left tackle showed everyone that he was not to be trifled with.† (source)
- This will let the imperialists know that they may not trifle with the men of the Soviet Navy, that we can approach their coast at the time of our choosing, and that they must respect the Soviet Union!† (source)
- "I am no one to be trifled with," replied the man in black "That is all you ever need to know."† (source)
- "Don't worry, I hear what you're saying and all," she retorts, talking fast and feeling, at this instant, that she's not to be trifled with.† (source)
- Metaphors are not to be trifled with.† (source)
- I was here on a serious charge, a homicide by whatever name, destruction of life under whatever bureaucratic label, and this was where I belonged, confined upstate, but the people who put me here were trifling with my mind.† (source)
- Sometimes I wonder what will happen if Sam and I are called to stand before Saint Peter on the same day, and my sins include everything from trifling with loose women to sleeping in church, and Sam just says, "Well, Pete, once I did fish on a Sunday."† (source)
- Our countrymen have too long trifled with public and private credit.† (source)
- But his inner circle of "good buddies" was a narrow one—Mike, Franklin, Harlon, and Doc were among its key members—and those outside it trifled with him at their peril.† (source)
- He was eager to make an impression on his superiors and establish himself with the American government as someone who was not to be trifled with.† (source)
- So you have already had your sweet trifle with her, I suppose; you have taken her there on her dirt bed?† (source)
- I'd taught Little Arliss and Jumper that I wasn't to be trifled with.† (source)
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...people who were not to be trifled with;
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trifled with = treated thoughtlessly
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...asked Phoebe, with impatient surprise that Holgrave should so trifle with her at such a moment.
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trifle with = treat thoughtlessly or without respect
- I don't trifle with him; but then, I have nothing to do with him. (source)
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Write to me by return of post, judge of my anxiety, and do not trifle with it.
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trifle with = treat thoughtlessly
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Henry Crawford had trifled with her feelings; but she had very long allowed and even sought his attentions, with a jealousy of her sister so reasonable as ought to have been their cure; and now that the conviction of his preference for Maria had been forced on her, she submitted to it without any alarm for Maria's situation, or any endeavour at rational tranquillity for herself.
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trifled with = treated thoughtlessly or without respect
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But there they were, in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often.
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trifled = played
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The sisters, handsome, clever, and encouraging, were an amusement to his sated mind; and finding nothing in Norfolk to equal the social pleasures of Mansfield, he gladly returned to it at the time appointed, and was welcomed thither quite as gladly by those whom he came to trifle with further.
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trifle with = treat thoughtlessly or without respect
- Even the wisest among us hesitate to trifle with them for fear of death or worse.† (source)
- He had a giant scar slanting down each cheek and seemed like no one to trifle with.† (source)
- We are not to be trifled with, boy!† (source)
- Once he landed in the safe-house network, he quickly made it known that he was not a guy to be trifled with.† (source)
- She is not one to trifle with.† (source)
- Rough fellows, by the look o' them, and desperate too, but ne'er so desperate as to trifle with Ser Creighton Longbough.† (source)
- The old man made me get engaged to her on the ground that I trifled with her affections.† (source)
- The mother of malice had trifled with men.† (source)
- [This feeling] lies at the very foundation of their sense of justice, and it cannot be trifled with...No statesman can safely disregard it† (source)
- Has he been trifling with you?† (source)
- She did not know if the lack of mail service was the cause, or if he had merely trifled with her affections and then forgotten her.† (source)
- Also a low growl rumbled in his throat as warning that he was not to be trifled with.† (source)
- Raoul, how that little fairy of the North has trifled with you!† (source)
- His trifling with the drug of research was risky.† (source)
- Go out and ask who is never trifled with, and who is always treated with some delicacy.† (source)
- Don't trifle with her affections, you Don Juan!† (source)
- She knew that he trifled with her; but she loved on.† (source)
- For the first time, in conversation with me to-day, he trifled with our customs and God.† (source)
- Of course he was not to be trifled with either—in a word, he was a real master!† (source)
- It seems to make you very happy that your daughter's affections have been trifled with.† (source)
- what dreadful trifling with people's constitutions!" said Mrs. Taft.† (source)
- He doesn't understand that she's one of those women who can't trifle with their feelings.† (source)
- VIVIE [ruthlessly] Yes, without a moment's hesitation, if you trifle with me about this.† (source)
- There must be no trifling with HER affections, poor dear.† (source)
- My Lady's name is not a name for common persons to trifle with!† (source)
- After a short pause, her companion added, "You are too generous to trifle with me.† (source)
- Your mother is not to be trifled with when she's angry.† (source)
- I could never trifle with anything that affected your sister's happiness.† (source)
- Old man, this trifling with our misery is inconsiderate, to give it a name no harsher—† (source)
- It is merely crossing,' said Mr. Micawber, trifling with his eye-glass, 'merely crossing.† (source)
- It was, as it were, trifling with the terrific character of his whiskers; but my object was to give him an opportunity for a good look at my cabin.† (source)
- Each waiter added an air of exclusiveness and elegance by the manner in which he bowed, scraped, touched, and trifled with things.† (source)
- For near three mortal months have you trifled with my feelings, eluded me, and snubbed me; and I won't stand it!† (source)
- Plead as he might, her case, as she saw it, was at last critical and no longer to be trifled with in any way.† (source)
- You can trifle with your breakfast and seem to disdain your dinner if you are full to the brim with roasted eggs and potatoes and richly frothed new milk and oatcakes and buns and heather honey and clotted cream.† (source)
- Like many other critics of Empire, her mouth had been stopped with food, and she could only exclaim at the hospitality with which she had been received, and warn the Mother Country against trifling with young Titans.† (source)
- And, for various reasons connected with his own temperament, which was retiring and recessive, as well as the nature of this local social world, he disliked and hesitated to even trifle with them.† (source)
- Dr. Col. Egbert Arrowsmith and I would fain trifle with another bottle of that renowned strawberry pop. Gosh, Clif, you cer'nly got a swell line of jaw-music.† (source)
- Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; the bare idea of that would startle me to frenzy: no, it was in my own person, that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience; and it was as an ordinary secret sinner, that I at last fell before the assaults of temptation.† (source)
- Nevertheless, her underlying thought in connection with all this, in so far as Clyde and his great passion for her was concerned—and hers for him—was that she was indeed trifling with fire and perhaps social disgrace into the bargain.† (source)
- You see what's to be done, and you hear what I say, and you know I'm not going to be trifled with any longer.† (source)
- "It grieves me to witness the extravagance that pervades this country," said the Judge, "where the settlers trifle with the blessings they might enjoy, with the prodigality of successful adventurers.† (source)
- what!" exclaimed all the robbers at once; "darest thou trifle with us, that thou tellest such improbable lies?"† (source)
- Make me understand once for all that you are trifling with my happiness, that my life or death are nothing to you.† (source)
- The wretched man trifled with his glass,—took it up, looked at it through the light, put it down,—prolonged my misery.† (source)
- The world still wants its poet-priest, a reconciler, who shall not trifle with Shakspeare the player, nor shall grope in graves with Swedenborg the mourner; but who shall see, speak, and act, with equal inspiration.† (source)
- Mankind twist and turn the rules of the Lord, to suit their own wickedness, when their devilish cunning has had too much time to trifle with His commands.† (source)
- — "Mr. Weston do not trifle with me.† (source)
- He's been trifling with you, and making a plaything of you, and caring nothing about you as a man ought to care.† (source)
- My Lady trifles with the screen and makes them glitter more, again with that expression which in other times might have been so dangerous to the young man of the name of Guppy.† (source)
- Some wild and half-frantic notion of a deception troubled her fancy, and she imagined that the men were trifling with her fears.† (source)
- Ah, it seems too good to be true, it IS too good to be true—I charge thee, have pity, do not trifle with me!† (source)
- I mean, daring to trifle with the respectability of a family that has a good and honest name to support.† (source)
- Hetty's instinct of right, if such a term can be applied to one who seemed taught by some kind spirit how to steer her course with unerring accuracy, between good and evil, would have revolted at Hurry's character on a thousand points, had there been opportunities to enlighten her, but while he conversed and trifled with her sister, at a distance from herself, his perfection of form and feature had been left to produce their influence on her simple imagination and naturally tender feelings, without suffering by the alloy of his opinions and coarseness.† (source)
- I must know it sooner or later; and what purpose can be gained by trifling with the matter for a few minutes, when half the time would put me in possession of all that has occurred?† (source)
- And now, men and women of America, is this a thing to be trifled with, apologized for, and passed over in silence?† (source)
- Lady Catherine seemed quite astonished at not receiving a direct answer; and Elizabeth suspected herself to be the first creature who had ever dared to trifle with so much dignified impertinence.† (source)
- You mustn't trifle with it, you know, or it may turn to pneumonia," she would go on, deriving much comfort from the utterance of that foreign word, incomprehensible to others as well as to herself.† (source)
- As you see, I am in the time of life when curiosity is as ungovernable as it was in childhood, when to trifle with it is cruelty.† (source)
- He himself, as was perceptible by many symptoms, lay darkly behind his pleasure, and knew it to be a baby-play, which he was to toy and trifle with, instead of thoroughly believing.† (source)
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meaning too rare to warrant focus:
show 3 examples with meaning too rare to warrant focus
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They lurked in the deserted entrance hall after Christmas tea, waiting for Crabbe and Goyle who had remained alone at the Slytherin table, shoveling down fourth helpings of trifle.
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trifle = a kind of dessert
- Blocks of ice cream in every flavor you could think of, apple pies, treacle tarts, chocolate eclairs and jam doughnuts, trifle, strawberries, Jell-O, rice pudding — (source)
- After a meal of turkey sandwiches, crumpets, trifle, and Christmas cake, everyone felt too full and sleepy to do much before bed except sit and watch Percy chase Fred and George all over Gryffindor tower because they'd stolen his prefect badge. (source)
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