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small beer - 3 dictionary results

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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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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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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Language Translation for : small beer
Spanish: insignificancia, bagatela,
German: ein kleiner Fisch,
Japanese: つまらぬもの
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