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In the 19th century, in Louisiana and other southern states, a picayune was a small coin (specifically, a Spanish half real) with a low monetary value. The coin's name derives from picaioun, a word that means "small coin" in Occitan (a language spoken in Southern France). It ultimately derives from the Occitan word pica, which means "to jingle" and which was created to mimic the sound of coins jingling. The real as a monetary unit fell out of use, however, and picayune joined two bits in the category of small amounts of money whose name eventually came to be used instead for things that are paltry and small.
Examples of picayune in a Sentence
Graeme Wood, The Atlantic, 9 May 2025
Observers believe a flood of intervention into D.C. laws — from the sweeping to the picayune — is more likely than a total revocation of home rule (though there is a longshot bill for that, too).
—Cuneyt Dil, Axios, 18 July 2024
Light-bodied and easy to drink, it’s got all the hallmarks of a classic grain whisky, but with a flavor profile that’s big and layered enough to satisfy the most picayune of single-malt snobs.
—Tony Sachs, Forbes, 30 Nov. 2023
The show has always dwelled in the picayune at times, but these and so many other moments feel like attempts to find the fight, to gin something up.
—Daniel D'addario, Variety, 13 July 2023
Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 28 July 2012
But only a fool would harp on picayune flaws when this rich material is being served with such musical polish and sensitivity.
—Charles Isherwood, WSJ, 18 Aug. 2022
Challenging ballot designations has become something of a sport in California politics — squabbles over the occasionally picayune rules return each cycle like the swallows to Capistrano.
—Los Angeles Times, 19 Mar. 2022
What would normally be regarded as an investigation that has reached the level of pursuing such picayune matters that it should be concluded, may to him or her be an investigation that ought to go on for another year.
—Dan McLaughlin, National Review, 13 Mar. 2022
There are at least two explanations: One is that the violations are so picayune as to expose a petty scheme to dump the executive.
—Washington Post, 19 Feb. 2022
This was the Britain—still very imperial yet so very picayune—to which Mr. Sen, who would go on to win the Nobel Prize in economics, had come to study.
—Tunku Varadarajan, WSJ, 21 Jan. 2022
Vance’s investigation, which appears to be focussed largely on business practices that Trump engaged in before taking office, may seem picayune in comparison with the outrageous offenses to democratic norms that Trump committed as President.
—Jane Mayer, The New Yorker, 12 Mar. 2021
But after months of family quarantine, combined with the confusion and exasperation of school-Zoom days, more of our wind-down reading sessions have involved the sureness of facts — picayune details about dogs and skyscrapers and coral reefs.
—Mark Athitakis, Washington Post, 24 Nov. 2020
Cite this Entry
“Picayune.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/picayune. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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