What's the difference between rifle and trifle?

Rifle


Definition:

  • (v. i.) To commit robbery.
  • (v. t.) To seize and bear away by force; to snatch away; to carry off.
  • (v. t.) To strip; to rob; to pillage.
  • (v. t.) To raffle.
  • (v. i.) To raffle.
  • (n.) A gun, the inside of whose barrel is grooved with spiral channels, thus giving the ball a rotary motion and insuring greater accuracy of fire. As a military firearm it has superseded the musket.
  • (n.) A body of soldiers armed with rifles.
  • (n.) A strip of wood covered with emery or a similar material, used for sharpening scythes.
  • (v. t.) To grove; to channel; especially, to groove internally with spiral channels; as, to rifle a gun barrel or a cannon.
  • (v. t.) To whet with a rifle. See Rifle, n., 3.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) He's Billy no-mates with a Heckler & Koch sniper-rifle, drowning in loneliness, booze and depression.
  • (2) A tall young Border Police officer stopped me, his rifle cradled in his arms.
  • (3) Types of weapons involved included handguns (48%), shotguns (22%), rifles (17%), unspecified weapon (12%), and air rifle (1%).
  • (4) Snipers fired from rooftops, and plainclothes Saleh supporters armed with automatic rifles, swords and batons attacked the protesters.
  • (5) Sky News has apologised profusely after one of its presenters was shown rifling through the personal belongings of a stricken passenger at the MH17 crash site.
  • (6) Deaths due to air rifles are extremely rare; only four other cases were found in the recent English-language literature.
  • (7) 7.13pm BST The starting XIs England: Hart (Oxford University), Walker (Barnes), Cahill (Harrow Chequers), Jagielka (Cambridge University), Baines (1st Surrey Rifles), Wilshere (Old Harrovians), Gerrard (Wanderers), Walcott (Swifts), Cleverley (Old Carthusians), Welbeck (Royal Engineers), Rooney (Old Etonians).
  • (8) The drug was administered from a distance by means of a projectile syringe shot from a special rifle.
  • (9) We sampled a sawn-off shotgun and an assault rifle, but cops do get tasers and tear gas to add some urban flavour.
  • (10) Armed with an assault rifle, he then allegedly headed into two poor villages in Kandahar province, the Taliban's heartland, and went on a murderous rampage in which six people were also injured.
  • (11) District head Baba Abba Hassan said most victims are children, women and elderly people who could not run fast enough when insurgents drove into Baga, firing rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles on town residents.
  • (12) Officers took up positions on rooftops and along railroad tracks and scanned the terrain through rifle scopes and binoculars.
  • (13) That proposal, similar to a Senate measure backed by the National Rifle Association, would let the attorney general delay a gun purchase by a suspected terrorist for three days, and let law enforcement officials ask a judge to block the purchase altogether.
  • (14) It can also be seen as a comment on the NSA debate, with Samantha gleefully rifling through Theodore's emails.
  • (15) Two men in a car tried to drive into the parking lot, jumped out with automatic rifles.
  • (16) A Royal Military police officer who was attached to the Rifles regiment, Pritchard had been put on duty at an observation post in the Sangin area of Helmand province, where the Taliban had fought hard for control.
  • (17) And with every heartbeat the blood was pumping up in the air from my thigh.” A man pointed a rifle at his head and threatened to finish him off.
  • (18) Via al-Aan correspondent Jenan Moussa: Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) I asked a rebel sniper in #Syria : Drop ur rifle for a day & document life through lens of a camera.
  • (19) Heller called Bundy’s militia supporters, many of whom had trained semi-automatic rifles on government rangers during the stand-off, “patriots”; now his spokesman is saying that the senator “completely disagrees with Mr Bundy’s appalling and racist statements”.
  • (20) ", but nothing helped, there was so much other noise – both the helicopter above us and the bastard's rifle.

Trifle


Definition:

  • (n.) A thing of very little value or importance; a paltry, or trivial, affair.
  • (n.) A dish composed of sweetmeats, fruits, cake, wine, etc., with syllabub poured over it.
  • (n.) To act or talk without seriousness, gravity, weight, or dignity; to act or talk with levity; to indulge in light or trivial amusements.
  • (v. t.) To make of no importance; to treat as a trifle.
  • (v. t.) To spend in vanity; to fritter away; to waste; as, to trifle away money.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) After a relatively trifling lead exposure they developed the signs of acute lead intoxication.
  • (2) It featured Adam Dalgliesh, the poet-policeman, and he seemed old-fashioned, too, intellectual and a trifle upper-class.
  • (3) So Inter sold him to Real Madrid at the end of the 1995-96 season for the trifling sum of £3.5million - less than they had paid for him.
  • (4) 1.15pm: Dave Espley is not a man to be trifled with: "I'd agree with Steven Gardner regarding the use of video technology for goalline reviews, but I'd go slightly further with regard to the retrospective punishment for cheating.
  • (5) Clementine and dark chocolate trifle (above) This recipe gives classic trifle a zingy twist with clementines and orange blossom; a great make-ahead dinner party dessert.
  • (6) Of course it is the hyperbolic silliness – the make-or-break trifle sponge, custard thefts, and prolonged ruminations over "The Crumb" – that makes The Great British Bake Off so lovable.
  • (7) English friends had explained to me, not without pride, the importance of grumbling to the national character, but I still want to stress to every Londoner I meet that — take it from a visiting Los Angeleno — the tube exists, and that counts as no trifling achievement.
  • (8) But it is a trifle dispiriting even so to hear the education secretary parroting the same lines as his predecessors – even more so for teachers, I guess.
  • (9) This March, the proportions of loans taken by finance and property slumped all the way to a trifling 74.7%, while non-financial firms took a whopping 25.3%.
  • (10) It wasn't a baked Alaska, a fruit tart, a cream-laden trifle or a steamed treacle sponge.
  • (11) If you wish to have only a trifling risk group of 10% of all pregnant women, you can predict right only about 50% of all infants with low birth weight.
  • (12) Bake Off validates the small quiet dramas of the trifling everyday.
  • (13) As in most mutinous them-and-us industrial confrontations it had been simmering for years and then boiled over for what seemed the most trifling of reasons.
  • (14) "And he is at a loss whether to pity a people who take such arrant trifles in good earnest or to envy that happiness which enables a community to discuss them."
  • (15) I try to answer these letters, but compared to the stories I'm hearing, my experience has been trifling - as more than one correspondent has pointed out.
  • (16) With the menswear shows in the capital now on their sixth season, such trifles have their place even in the mainstream world of an Arcadia-owned brand.
  • (17) Some jokey conspiracy theories did the rounds and one YouTube user criticised Hadfield's interpretation of the song as being overly literal (arguably correct, but a trifle harsh, considering).
  • (18) Clegg was the deputy prime minister and would not jeopardise his relationship with the Conservative party over such a trifle.
  • (19) And what would become of my mornings in my little corner and my late nights scanning the TV channels, watching my crime shows, not a trifling thing?
  • (20) But it’s no trifle — especially given the governor’s national ambitions.