Dictionary Thesaurus Word Dynamo Quotes Reference Translator Spanish

pittance

[pit-ns]

noun

a small amount or share.

a small allowance or sum, as of money for living expenses.

a scanty income or remuneration.

Origin:
1175–1225; Middle English pitaunce < Old French pitance, variant of pietance piety, pity, allowance of food (in a monastery). See pity, -ance

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
Cite This Source

Link To pittance

:10

:09

:08

:07

:06

:05

:04

:03

:02

:01

Pittance is always a great word to know.

So is gobo. Does it mean:

a screen or mat covered with a dark material for shielding a camera lens from excess light or glare.

an extraordinary or unusual thing, person, or event; an exceptional example or instance.

LEARN MORE UNUSUAL WORDS WITH WORD DYNAMO...

Example Sentences

People wonder if they are earning every possible penny on their pittance.

Oberg might receive some pittance for whistleblowing.

Cutting civil-service pay seems unfair to officials who earn a pittance.

EXPAND

People wonder if they are earning every possible penny on their pittance.

Oberg might receive some pittance for whistleblowing.

Cutting civil-service pay seems unfair to officials who earn a pittance.

Untouchables work for a pittance washing clothes at dawn.

The king responded with an insulting reward that was but a pittance for his work.

Usually, however, these refunds are a pittance compared to the revenue click fraud generates for them.

People cannot expect to trade a pittance for pearls.

Furthermore, campuses have a ready pool of part-timers willing to labor for the pittance.

Since no one is getting much more than a pittance from the state, there's not much to get upset about.

Africans eat off the sidewalk and sell peanuts for a pittance.

Nor does it provide for the service of ministers, who say they often end up with a pittance.

They publish on demand, give the author a few free copies and a pittance for royalties.

Some evicted civilians were then forced back by soldiers to mine the diamonds for a pittance.

Broken ones are sold for a pittance to scrap collectors.

Diab, a potter, earns a pittance illegally packing olives into tins.

It doesn't matter in terms of doing the job-it doesn't matter a pittance.

It is unseemly for a school district to sell its space for the pittance it receives.

Millions of rural poor growing crops for export earn a pittance and face rising prices of inputs.

Artists struggling to make ends meet toil for days for a pittance.

But that's a mere pittance compared to the price the peppercorns can exact on one's health.

Smallholders have their arms twisted to sign away their rights for a pittance.

Kozlowski also looked for ways to save amounts of money that represented a pittance of his wealth.

All they do is give a pittance of infrastructure and lip service.

She had always had a sharp sense of what wasn't fair, such as being paid a pittance at the laundry.

His mother brought up three children on a pittance she earned as a schoolteacher.

Neither set of lenders was paid more than a pittance.

For the world's second-largest economy, it is a pittance.

That, alas, is a mere pittance in the context of this year's broader lending spree.

Because artists have always made a pittance from record sales, if anything at all.

Basic climate research funding remains a pittance compared to the climate bureaucracy budgets.

Someone will do that backbreaking work, and probably for a pittance because it is something any ablebodied person can do.

The government's contribution to this is a pittance.

She is soon ringed by hagglers wanting her paltry wares for even less than the pittance she asks.

There laborers are paid a pittance to smash, crack, melt and cook the materials out of old electronics.

They earn a pittance compared with their compatriots in the pages of.

The short-sightedness of some who would prefer to save the pittance that this program costs is what astounds.

On the other hand, if they walked, they could rent a similar house for a pittance of their monthly mortgage.

Many of them travel the world, spend thousands and give a small pittance for international flood victims and other tragedies.

The basic scientists are getting a pittance compared to the lobbyists and advocates for one idea or another.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

pittance (ˈpɪt^əns)

—n
	a small amount or portion, esp a meagre allowance of money

[C16: from Old French pietance ration, ultimately from Latin pietās duty]

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

pittance

early 13c., "pious donation to a religious house or order to provide extra food," from O.Fr. pitance "portion of food allowed a monk or poor person by a pious bequest," lit. "pity," from pitié (see pity). Meaning "small amount, portion" first recorded 1560s.

Word Dynamo By Dictionary.com

Searching for pittance?
How many words do you actually know?

FIND OUT

Related Words

dole

Matching Quote

"It is a wild, rank place, and there is no flattery in it. Strewn with crabs, horseshoes, and razor clams, and whatever the sea casts up,—a vast morgue, where famished dogs may range in packs, and crows come daily to glean the pittance which the tide leaves them. The carcasses of men and beasts together lie stately up upon its shelf, rotting and bleaching in the sun and waves, and each tide turns them in their beds, and tucks fresh sand under them. There is naked Nature,—inhumanly sincere, wasting no thought on man, nibbling at the cliffy shore where gulls wheel amid the spray."

-Henry David Thoreau

Partners:Word Bloglines Citysearch The Daily Beast Ask Answers Ask Kids Life123 Sendori Thesaurus

About Privacy Policy Terms of Use API Careers Advertise with Us Contact Us Help

pittance

pit·tance