What's the difference between petty and small?

Petty


Definition:

  • (superl.) Little; trifling; inconsiderable; also, inferior; subordinate; as, a petty fault; a petty prince.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The only thing the media will talk about in the hours and days after the debate will be Trump’s refusal to say he will accept the results of the election, making him appear small, petty and conspiratorial.
  • (2) I realize it’s petty, but it’s like the Michael Bolton thing from Office Space.
  • (3) Winston Churchill, when he was offered the role of minister of the local government board in 1906, commented: "There is no place more laborious, more anxious, more thankless, more cloaked with petty and even squalid detail, more full of hopeless and insoluble difficulties."
  • (4) Let’s make sure it’s not on the usual plane of politics and point-scoring and pettiness that drifts away in the next news cycle.
  • (5) We took all the feedback from users and put pencil to paper to create our consumer 3D printer built for speed and ease of use,” said Pettis.
  • (6) Facebook Twitter Pinterest China dismisses Trump call with Taiwan as ‘small trick’ However, Beijing’s public response has so far been measured, with the foreign ministry lodging a “solemn representation” with Washington and the foreign minister, Wang Yi, downplaying the development as “a petty move” by Taiwan.
  • (7) She won’t apologize for whatever makes the New York Times treat her with middle-school levels of petty scorn .
  • (8) The president should have directed the Justice Department to stop taking stupid points and petty appeals.” One reason the Justice Department pursued the habeas cases so hard was its client: the Pentagon.
  • (9) As the locus of many migrants' investments, the village of Los Pinos has experienced a modest growth in the number of full-time jobs paying somewhat above the minimum urban wage and in a variety of petty entrepreneurial activities depending heavily on the patronage of migrant households, themselves heavily subsidized by remittances.
  • (10) Indeed watching the prime minister singling out unemployed youngsters for uniquely punitive measures while pretending it is for their own good, cheered on by a gang of braying chums, it looks less like the behaviour of a national statesman and more like the petty vindictiveness of a schoolyard bully.
  • (11) Some are retired, others straddle the uncertain worlds of petty trading, agriculture and seasonal migrant labour.
  • (12) Not long ago, the mecca of American tourism was populated by sex workers, transvestites, drug addicts and petty criminals, rather than middle-class tourists.
  • (13) All the petty differences that divide us seem to melt away.
  • (14) Abdeslam relied on a large network of friends and relatives that already existed for drug dealing and petty crime to keep him in hiding,” Belgium’s federal prosecutor, Frederic Van Leeuw, told Belgian public broadcaster RTBF.
  • (15) Another said: "The problem with PMQs isn't so much that it's shouty but that the so-called pinnacle of political debate in this country is two men trading petty insults and making nasty jokes about the other while the rest of parliament boos and cheers behind them.
  • (16) They included a former monk, two young men with learning disabilities, a handful of petty criminals and a teacher at a private school in Paris who was "disappeared" by another republican group, the INLA.
  • (17) The study was conducted in the three contiguous counties of Johnson, Lafayette and Pettis in west central Missouri.
  • (18) Edgar Mitchell, the Apollo 14 Lunar Module Pilot, said that walking on the Moon gives you an instant global consciousness, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it, that international politics look so petty.
  • (19) It also found that some children were put into care without lawful basis, including for petty theft and for being rude.
  • (20) Parents are required to bring up children responsibly, while living in a form of servitude to licensed employers and petty line managers, often themselves at risk of returning to zero-hours.

Small


Definition:

  • (superl.) Having little size, compared with other things of the same kind; little in quantity or degree; diminutive; not large or extended in dimension; not great; not much; inconsiderable; as, a small man; a small river.
  • (superl.) Being of slight consequence; feeble in influence or importance; unimportant; trivial; insignificant; as, a small fault; a small business.
  • (superl.) Envincing little worth or ability; not large-minded; -- sometimes, in reproach, paltry; mean.
  • (superl.) Not prolonged in duration; not extended in time; short; as, after a small space.
  • (superl.) Weak; slender; fine; gentle; soft; not loud.
  • (adv.) In or to small extent, quantity, or degree; little; slightly.
  • (adv.) Not loudly; faintly; timidly.
  • (n.) The small or slender part of a thing; as, the small of the leg or of the back.
  • (n.) Smallclothes.
  • (n.) Same as Little go. See under Little, a.
  • (v. t.) To make little or less.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The effect of insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) on growth of small cell lung cancer (SCLC) cell lines was studied.
  • (2) Such a signal must be due to a small ferromagnetic crystal formed when the nerve is subjected to pressure, such as that due to mechanical injury.
  • (3) The Na+ ionophore, gramicidin, had a small but significant inhibitory effect on Na(+)-dependent KG uptake, demonstrating that KG uptake was not the result of an intravesicular positive Na+ diffusion potential.
  • (4) For some time now, public opinion polls have revealed Americans' strong preference to live in comparatively small cities, towns, and rural areas rather than in large cities.
  • (5) The predicted non-Lorentzian line shapes and widths were found to be in good agreement with experimental results, indicating that the local orientational order (called "packing" by many workers) in the bilayers of small vesicles and in multilamellar membranes is substantially the same.
  • (6) If Charles Spencer, 3rd Duke of Marlborough, who bought the island in 1738, were to return today he would doubtless recognise the scene, though he might be surprised that his small private buildings have grown into a sizable hotel.
  • (7) We conclude that chronic emphysema produced in dogs by aerosol administration of papain results in elevated pulmonary artery pressure, which is characterized pathologically by medial hypertrophy of small pulmonary arteries.
  • (8) As the percentage of rabbit feed is very small compared to the bulk of animal feeds, there is a fair chance that rabbit feed will be contaminated with constituents (additives) of batches previously prepared for other animals.
  • (9) The extent of the infectious process was limited, however, because the life span of the cultures was not significantly shortened, the yields of infectious virus per immunofluorescent cell were at all times low, and most infected cells contained only a few well-delineated small masses of antigen, suggestive of an abortive infection.
  • (10) The small units described here could be inhibitory interneurons which convert the excitatory response of large units into inhibition.
  • (11) Early stabilisation may not ensure normal development but even early splinting carries a small risk of avascular necrosis.
  • (12) Twenty patients with non-small cell bronchogenic carcinoma were prospectively studied for intrathoracic lymphadenopathy using computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
  • (13) In addition, KM231 could detect a small amount of the antigen ganglioside in human gastric normal and cancerous mucosa and in gastric cancer cell lines by HPTLC-immunostaining.
  • (14) Two small populations of GLY + neurons were observed outside of the named nuclei of the SOC; one was located dorsal to the LSO, near its dorsal hilus, and the other was identified near the medial pole of the LSO.
  • (15) Because of the small number of patients reported in the world literature and lack of controlled studies, the treatment of small cell carcinoma of the larynx remains controversial; this retrospective analysis suggests that combination chemotherapy plus radiation offers the best chance for cure.
  • (16) Only small amounts of 3H oleic acid were converted.
  • (17) The pH gradient measured with dimethyloxazolidine-2,4-dione and acetylsalicylic acid was very small in both bacteria at a high pH above 8, and was not affected significantly by the addition of CCCP.
  • (18) The results also indicate that small lesions initially noted only on CT scans of the chest in children with Wilms' tumor frequently represent metastatic tumor.
  • (19) CT scan revealed a small calcified mass in the right maxillary sinus.
  • (20) We have previously shown that intratracheally instilled silica (quartz) produces both morphologic evidence of emphysema and small-airway changes, and functional evidence of airflow obstruction.