Definition of TRIVIAL

Did You Know?

Trivial comes from a Latin word meaning "crossroads"—that is, where three roads come together. Since a crossroads is a very public place where all kinds of people might show up, trivialis came to mean "commonplace" or "vulgar". Today the English word has changed slightly in meaning and instead usually describes something barely worth mentioning. Mathematicians use the word to refer to some part of a proof or definition that's extremely simple and needn't be explained, but the rest of us tend to use it just to mean "unimportant". "Small talk" at a party, for example, is usually trivial conversation, though a trivial excuse for not going on a date ("I have to wash my hair") might hide an emotion that isn't so trivial ("I can't stand the sight of you"). To trivialize something is to treat it as if it didn't matter, as if it were just another triviality.

Examples of trivial in a Sentence

His later memory, untutored and unsupported by anything so trivial as evidence or documents, now flourished and ran wild. — Muriel Spark, Curriculum Vitae, (1992) 1993 I had never heard anyone speak of their parents in this way; I never even knew you could make them seem trivial … — Jamaica Kincaid, Lucy, 1990 But the last tribute was to be a struggle among states for possession of the trivial remains of a man who in life had known as much revilement as honor. — Robert Penn Warren, Jefferson Davis Gets His Citizenship Back, 1980 statistics and other trivial matters a trivial sum of money Compared to her problems, our problems seem trivial.

Recent Examples on the Web

The spokesman described the relinquishment as trivial. — Micah Maidenberg, WSJ, "Miners Cut Back in Largest U.S. Coal Region," 31 Dec. 2018 For a woman of Hayek’s accomplishments, such trivial jealousies are not to be taken seriously. — Elizabeth Day, Town & Country, "Salma Hayek Isn't Going to Let Anyone Define Her," 6 Mar. 2019 Bandersnatch allows viewers to make film-altering choices, which range from trivial (pick the protagonist's breakfast) to plot-altering (choose whether to take medication), by using remote controls on most streaming-video devices. — Sam Machkovech, Ars Technica, "Not Bander-snatched: Black Mirror confirms fifth season plans," 28 Dec. 2018 Machine learning has all kinds of nefarious and trivial applications, but one of the most useful and terrific has been the rise of quick and cheap transcription tools. — Eric Limer, Popular Mechanics, "Finally, the Robots Are Turning Phone Calls Into Text Chats," 3 Dec. 2018 His feats, however impressive, are trivial for a computer. — James Taranto, WSJ, "How to Store Data Along Memory Lane," 18 Jan. 2019 If one of its most visible AI features is making such trivial mistakes, why should consumers trust the company’s other services? — James Vincent, The Verge, "Google removes gendered pronouns from Gmail’s Smart Compose to avoid AI bias," 27 Nov. 2018 While editing a document or spreadsheet directly from a flash drive is trivial, that’s not the case for video, where the interface speed limits performance considerably. — Mark Hachman, PCWorld, "SanDisk's Extreme Pro portable SSD is so fast you can edit video on it," 8 Jan. 2019 And yet the scale of the veneration of the Ganges makes the Jordan seem trivial by comparison. — Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ, "‘Unruly Waters’ and ‘Ganges’ Review: In India, Water Is Politics," 4 Jan. 2019

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