(v. t.) A thing for amusement, but of no real value; an article of trade of little value; a trifle.
(v. t.) A wild fancy; an odd conceit; idle sport; folly; trifling opinion.
(v. t.) Amorous dalliance; play; sport; pastime.
(v. t.) An old story; a silly tale.
(v. t.) A headdress of linen or woolen, that hangs down over the shoulders, worn by old women of the lower classes; -- called also toy mutch.
(v. i.) To dally amorously; to trifle; to play.
(v. t.) To treat foolishly.
Example Sentences:
(1) To become president of Afghanistan , Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai changed his wardrobe and modified his name, gave up coffee, embraced a man he once denounced as a “known killer” and even toyed with anger management classes to tame a notorious temper.
(2) The "Dream Toys" for Christmas list includes a few old favourites alongside some new, and sparkly, additions.
(3) In a statement, Fisher Price said: “We recently learned of a security vulnerability with our Fisher-Price WiFi-connected Smart Toy Bear.
(4) Pretty much every major toy brand, as well as apps like Angry Birds and Talking Friends, are spawning “webisodes” on YouTube as well as traditional ads, which often sit side-by-side within the same channel.
(5) An observational study was made of 1-2-year-old children, and of mentally handicapped children functioning at a similar level, to determine the extent to which they involved themselves in play with toys and other objects and the extent to which their day was "empty".
(6) The only 2 significant sex-of-parent x sex-of-child effects occurred at 18 months; fathers gave fewer positive reactions to boys engaging in female-typical toy play, and mothers gave more instruction to girls when they attempted to communicate.
(7) Incidental teaching and traditional discrete-trial procedures were used to teach two children with autism the expressive use of two color adjectives to describe preferred toys and food items.
(8) You can use absolutely anything - an unwanted T-shirt, some old curtains, something you picked up in a charity shop ... Garish 70s-style prints you probably wouldn't dream of wearing work surprisingly well in soft toys: they are cute, they can pull it off.
(9) In both experiments, videotapes of model monkeys behaving fearfully were spliced so that it appeared that the models were reacting fearfully either to fear-relevant stimuli (toy snakes or a toy crocodile), or to fear-irrelevant stimuli (flowers or a toy rabbit).
(10) Soft organic material (meat, cucumber peels) was found in four patients, chicken bones in six, pins and needles in six, other nonorganic materials (toys, stone, broken thermometer) in six.
(11) There are signs that Disney intends to respect its expensive new toy.
(12) However, when toys were absent, there were no significant differences in visual attention between ADHD and normal boys.
(13) White is doing his own bit to turn back the clock: at his gigs, he enforces a strict ban on the audience shooting pictures or video; at home, he only allows his children – Scarlett, eight, and Hank, six – to play with mechanical toys.
(14) Cars, furniture, books, dishes, TVs, highways, buildings, jewellery, toys and even electricity would not exist without water.
(15) Although it remains unclear why he chose to place the muddled woman in a kitchen – clinging to her mug and surrounded by children's toys – as opposed to say, in a laboratory or a truck, he claims all the words were authentically spoken by "women in dozens of focus groups around the country", prior to being stitched together in this latest triumph for the fashionable, verbatim school of drama.
(16) Many parents think hard about what kind of books to buy for their children; mull over the suitability of various TV shows and films; and compare the educational and entertainment value of different toys.
(17) That found parents play an important role in the choice of toys and “they consider construction toys to stimulate creativity and can be used differently each time a child plays with them”, the ONS said.
(18) The provision of structure in the form of thematically related toy sets, instructions, and modeling did not reduce the discrepancy between demonstrated play behaviors of toddlers with SLI-E and their normally developing peers.
(19) Now they’re having to downsize, changing cities and dispose of all their toys, like their big trucks and Ski-doos, but nobody wants to buy that stuff because they can’t afford it either.” “It’s very depressing,” says Seibel, who’s still unemployed despite sending several hundreds of resumes, including to McDonalds, where he was told he was overqualified.
(20) Parents' initial nonverbal responses to the toys, however, were more positive when the toys were stereotyped for the child's and parent's gender than when they were not.
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.