paltry

Alas, “The Whisper Man” is merely a collection of defanged genre tropes and equally familiar character writing, tossing paltry scraps to its supporting cast in Michelle Monaghan and Michael Keaton.

From Salon ● Sep. 2, 2026

The Bureau of Labor Statistics previously had reported that a paltry 273,000 new jobs were created between March 2025 and March 2026.

From MarketWatch ● Aug. 28, 2026

“But discovery revealed that Defendants’ paltry ‘intelligence’ was manufactured to justify operations at public access locations Defendants were already intent on raiding,” according to the motion.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 28, 2026

The Treasury report says Britain spent £65.4 billion on defense in fiscal 2025-2026—or a paltry 2.31% of GDP, according to NATO.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 26, 2026

Instead I give her something paltry and useless: a verb to conjugate.

From "Ophelia" by Lisa Klein

So far, milder summer temperatures have spared him from the prospect of even paltrier yields.

From Washington Times ● Aug. 2, 2014

Ah! what a contrast there is between the languid way in which Christian men pursue what the Bible designates their 'calling' and that in which men with far paltrier aims pursue theirs!

From Expositions of Holy Scripture Second Corinthians, Galatians, and Philippians Chapters I to End. Colossians, Thessalonians, and First Timothy. by Alexander Maclaren

The design is the same in both, the proportions also; but the one is a chimney, the other a paltry model of a paltrier edifice.

From The Poetry of Architecture Or, the Architecture of the Nations of Europe Considered in its Association with Natural Scenery and National Character by John Ruskin

He must maintain appearances in keeping with his associations—or drop downscale to meaner opportunities and paltrier prizes.

From The Law of Hemlock Mountain by Hugh Lundsford

If one of the meanest of human conditions is conscious heroism, paltrier yet is heroism before the fact, incapable of self realization!

From The Marquis of Lossie by George MacDonald

This not only explains why Jupiter only has the paltriest of rings at present; it suggests that it likely never had large rings.

From Salon ● Jul. 22, 2022

Meanwhile, the true laborers of the book industry — those who hustle and work the angles, who take the greatest risks and reap the paltriest rewards — will barely get any bookseller facetime at all.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 4, 2020

The spring snowpack is the paltriest ever measured — by April it contained just 5% of a normal year’s water — and by the end of August the major reservoirs held 59% of their historical average.

From Nature ● Sep. 29, 2015

The money which he had expended in the gratification of what the uninitiated would call a whim, seemed to him the paltriest detail, quite unworthy of consideration.

From Peak and Prairie From a Colorado Sketch-book by Emma G. Moore

Since Between heart and heart, speech is the paltriest of channels.

From Hints for Lovers by T. Arnold (Theodore Arnold) Haultain