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trivial - 6 dictionary results
triv⋅i⋅al
[triv-ee-uh
l] 
–adjective
| 1. | of very little importance or value; insignificant: Don't bother me with trivial matters. |
| 2. | commonplace; ordinary. |
| 3. | Biology. (of names of organisms) specific, as distinguished from generic. |
| 4. | Mathematics.
|
| 5. | Chemistry. (of names of chemical compounds) derived from the natural source, or of historic origin, and not according to the systematic nomenclature: Picric acid is the trivial name of 2,4,6-trinitrophenol. |
Origin:
1400–50; late ME < L triviālis belonging to the crossroads or street corner, hence commonplace, equiv. to tri- tri- + vi(a) road + -ālis -al 1
1400–50; late ME < L triviālis belonging to the crossroads or street corner, hence commonplace, equiv. to tri- tri- + vi(a) road + -ālis -al 1
Related forms:
triv⋅i⋅al⋅ly, adverb
Synonyms:
1. unimportant, nugatory, slight, immaterial, inconsequential, frivolous, trifling. See petty.
1. unimportant, nugatory, slight, immaterial, inconsequential, frivolous, trifling. See petty.
Antonyms:
1. important.
1. important.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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|
Link To trivial
| triv·i·al (trĭv'ē-əl) adj.
[Middle English trivialle, of the trivium (from Medieval Latin triviālis, from trivium, trivium; see trivium) and Latin triviālis, ordinary (from trivium, crossroads).] triv'i·al·ly adv. Synonyms: These adjectives all apply to what is small and unimportant. Trivial and trifling refer to what is so insignificant as to be utterly commonplace or unremarkable: "I think all Christians . . . agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial" (Samuel Johnson). "I regret the trifling narrow contracted education of the females of my own country" (Abigail Adams). Word History: The word trivial entered Middle English with senses quite different from its most common contemporary ones. We find in a work from 1432-50 mention of the "arte trivialle," an allusion to the three liberal arts that made up the trivium, the lower division of the seven liberal arts taught in medieval universities—grammar, rhetoric, and logic. The history of trivial goes back to the Latin word trivium, formed from the prefix tri-, "three," and via, "road." Trivium thus meant "the meeting place of three roads, especially as a place of public resort." The publicness of such a place also gave the word a pejorative sense that we express in the phrase the gutter, as in "His manners were formed in the gutter." The Latin adjective triviālis, derived from trivium, thus meant "appropriate to the street corner, commonplace, vulgar." Trivial is first recorded in English with a sense identical to that of triviālis in 1589. Shortly after that trivial is recorded in the sense most familiar to us, "of little importance or significance," making it a word now used of things less weighty than grammar, rhetoric, and logic. |
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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Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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Trivial
Triv"i*al\, a. [L. trivialis, properly, that is in, or belongs to, the crossroads or public streets; hence, that may be found everywhere, common, fr. trivium a place where three roads meet, a crossroad, the public street; tri- (see Tri-) + via a way: cf. F. trivial. See Voyage.]1. Found anywhere; common. [Obs.] 2. Ordinary; commonplace; trifling; vulgar. As a scholar, meantime, he was trivial, and incapable of labor. --De Quincey. 3. Of little worth or importance; inconsiderable; trifling; petty; paltry; as, a trivial subject or affair. The trivial round, the common task. --Keble. 4. Of or pertaining to the trivium. Trivial name (Nat. Hist.), the specific name.Trivial
Triv"i*al\, n. One of the three liberal arts forming the trivium. [Obs.] --Skelton. Wood.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.
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Language Translation for : trivial
Spanish:
trivial, insignificante, banal,
German:
unbedeutend,
Japanese:
ささいな
trivial
adj.1. Too simple to bother detailing.
2. Not worth the speaker's time.
3. Complex, but solvable by methods so well known that anyone not utterly cretinous would have thought of them already.
4. Any problem one has already solved (some claim that hackish `trivial' usually evaluates to `I've seen it before'). Hackers' notions of triviality may be quite at variance with those of non-hackers. See nontrivial, uninteresting.
The physicist Richard Feynman, who had the hacker nature to an amazing degree (see his essay "Los Alamos From Below" in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"), defined `trivial theorem' as "one that has already been proved".
Jargon File 4.2.0
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trivial
1432, "of the trivium," from M.L. trivialis, from trivium "first three of the seven liberal arts," from L., lit. "place where three roads meet," from tri- "three" + via "road." The basic notion is of "that which may be found anywhere, commonplace, vulgar." The meaning "ordinary" (1589) and "insignificant" (1593) were in L. trivialis "commonplace, vulgar," originally "of or belonging to the crossroads." The verb trivialize is attested from 1846.
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
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