Word of the Day
: December 9, 2025paltry
playWhat It Means
Paltry is a formal word that can describe something that is very small or too small in amount, or something that has little meaning, importance, or worth.
// They're offering a paltry salary for the position.
// The professor announced they'd finally had enough of the students' paltry excuses for being late to class.
paltry in Context
"When the witty and wry English fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett interviewed Bill Gates for GQ in 1995, only 39% of Americans had access to a home computer. According to the Pew Research Center, the number who were connected to the internet was a paltry 14%." — Ed Simon, LitHub.com, 25 Nov. 2024
Did You Know?
Before paltry was an adjective, it was a noun meaning trash. That now-obsolete noun came from palt or pelt, a dialect term referring to a piece of coarse cloth, or more broadly, to trash. The adjective paltry, which dates to the mid-16th century, originally described things considered worthless, or of very low quality, but it's gained a number of meanings over the centuries, none of which are complimentary. A paltry house might be neglected and unfit for occupancy; a paltry trick is a trick that is low-down and dirty; a paltry excuse is a poor one; and a paltry sum is small and insufficient.
Test Your Vocabulary with M-W Quizzes
Test Your Vocabulary
Fill in the blanks to form an adjective that can mean "trivial" or "frivolous": _ r _ f l _ _ g.
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