Pettiness

noun

noun ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The quality of being petty. countable, uncountable

    "The pettiness of the accounting department asking me to save a receipt from a fast-food restaurant was absurd."

  2. 2
    lack of generosity in trifling matters wordnet
  3. 3
    A petty behaviour, attitude, etc. countable, uncountable
  4. 4
    the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous wordnet
  5. 5
    narrowness of mind or ideas or views wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
abjectnessabominablenessatrociousnessauthoritarianismbasenessbeggarliness

Example

More examples

"Let's resist the temptation to fall back on the same partisanship and pettiness and immaturity that has poisoned our politics for so long."

Etymology

From petty + -ness.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.