Footling (Adjective)

Meaning

(informal) small and of little importance; "a fiddling sum of money"; "a footling gesture"; "our worries are lilliputian compared with those of countries that are at war"; "a little (or small) matter"; "a dispute over niggling details"; "limited to petty enterprises"; "piffling efforts"; "giving a police officer a free meal may be against the law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction".

Classification

All adjective clusters.

Usages

• Colloquialism

Examples

• The company's profits were a footling amount compared to their massive losses last year.
• She made a footling attempt to apologize, but it was clear she wasn't sincere.
• The politician's promise to increase funding for the arts was seen as a footling gesture by many in the community.
• The footling sum of money he inherited from his great aunt was barely enough to cover his rent for a month.
• The researchers spent years studying a footling detail that ended up being irrelevant to the overall project.

Synonyms

• Piddling
• Niggling
• Trivial
• Lilliputian
• Picayune
• Little
• Fiddling
• Piffling
• Petty