small potato

Definition of small potato

: one that is of trivial importance or worth —usually used in plural but singular or plural in construction

Examples of small potato in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web The internet is small potatoes compared to listening to the weather report from Moose Jaw in the frozen north, or picking up Wolfman Jack from a Mexican station while driving down Highway 99 in the middle of the night. — Carl Nolte, SFChronicle.com, "You know ’em — those awful jingles on the radio. They’re the real songs of San Francisco," 23 Nov. 2019 Meanwhile, all that tariff money is likely to bring an extra $40 billion of duties to the Treasury this year — small potatoes in the context of a $1 trillion budget deficit, but a sizable sum in its own right. — David Fickling | Bloomberg, Washington Post, "China Risks Overplaying Its Hand on Trade," 6 Nov. 2019 But Microsoft’s contracts, which exceed $10 million, are small potatoes compared to the agency’s main suppliers. — Natasha Frost, Quartz, "Deloitte, Microsoft, Dell: These are the companies making millions supplying ICE," 15 Sep. 2019 All are terrible and the size of those schemes may make the cannabis industry scandals look like small potatoes. — Debra Borchardt, chicagotribune.com, "Top 5 cannabis industry scandals," 6 Sep. 2019 But that’s small potatoes in the grand scheme of a major hurricane threat. Food losses may be covered by insurance or tax-deductible. — Michael Mayo, sun-sentinel.com, "Hurricane Dorian food prep: Eating in and eating out before, during and after the storm," 29 Aug. 2019 Of course, the 10,000 people who attend Newport annually must seem like small potatoes to a Michael Lang. — Chris Willman, chicagotribune.com, "What Woodstock could learn from the Newport Folk Festival," 29 July 2019 Ruple developed a lump the size of a small potato on his breast. — Terry Pluto, cleveland.com, "John Carroll’s Chris Wenzler and Baldwin Wallace’s Kevin Ruple: A story of small-college sports, big hearts and cancer — Terry Pluto," 16 June 2019 The small potatoes have names such as AmaRosa, Purple Passion, Bintje, Ruby Crescent and Russian Banana. — John Sowell, idahostatesman, "You know the russet, Idaho’s Goliath potato. Meet its colorful David challengers. | Idaho Statesman," 31 Mar. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'small potato.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

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Last Updated

3 Dec 2019

Cite this Entry

“Small potato.” The Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster Inc., https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/small%20potato. Accessed 16 December 2019.

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