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Small beer

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small beer

 
Use Small beer in a Sentence
–noun
1. weak beer.
2. Chiefly British Slang. matters or persons of little or no importance.
Origin:
1560–70
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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The Beer Journal
Remember the Beers you drink! Record your beer tasting adventures
www.thebeerjournal.com
small beer  
n.  

  1. Weak or inferior beer.

  2. Unimportant things; trivia.

adj.  Trivial; unimportant.
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Slang Dictionary
small beer

  1. n.
    nothing or next to nothing; an insignificant person. (From a very old word for weak or inferior beer.) : Small beer or not, he's my customer, and I will see that he is taken care of.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
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Idioms & Phrases

small beer

Also, small potatoes. Of little importance, as in Don't listen to Henry; he's small beer, or It's silly to worry about that bill; it's small potatoes. The first term alludes to a beer of low alcoholic content (also called light beer today) and was used metaphorically by Shakespeare in several plays. The variant may have been invented by frontiersman Davy Crockett; it was first recorded in 1836. Also see small fry, def. 2.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
Copyright © 1997. Published by Houghton Mifflin.
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