petty [ 'peti] a.细小的；器量小的
Petty cash 零用现金
petty cash account 零用现金帐户
petty cash fund 零用备用金
Good manners are made up of petty sacrifices.
得体的举止由许多细小的牺牲构成。
Am I being petty?
意思是：「我是气量小吗？」或「我是心胸狭窄吗？」(narrow-minded) 这是一个人做了或说了某件事情後，唯恐别人批评或指责而自加「反省」的表态。（或表示谦虚）
这里用 verb to be 的现在进行式，表示气量小或心胸窄是「暂时性」的。而 Am I petty? 又是指「经常性」的。（但是谁又愿意承认自己是经常的气量小，心胸窄呢！所以为了「自尊心」，通常不说"I am petty"，只说"I am being petty." 同理：
Am I being over-reactive?（或 over sensitive?)（我是反应过火或过份敏感吗？）
Are you being in bad mood?（你情绪不好吗？）都是强调「暂时性」。否则就不必使用现在进行式 (being)
It is not true suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.
William Somerset Maugham, British novelist
说苦难能使人格得到升华，这是不确切的；幸福有时倒能做到这一点，而苦难常会使人心胸狭窄，产生复仇的心理。
英国小说家毛姆W S
卑微 [bēi wēi] /petty and low/
细小 [xì xiǎo] /petty/wee/
小气 [xiǎo qì] /stingy/narrow/petty/
{adj: annoyed, harassed, harried, pestered, vexed} troubled persistently especially with petty annoyances
"harassed working mothers"
"a harried expression"
"her poor pestered father had to endure her constant interruptions"
"the vexed parents of an unruly teenager"
{adj: censorious} harshly critical or expressing censure
"was censorious of petty failings"
{adj: fiddling, footling, lilliputian, little, niggling, piddling, piffling, petty, picayune, trivial} (informal) small and of little importance
"a fiddling sum of money"
"a footling gesture"
"our worries are lilliputian compared with those of countries that are at war"
"a little (or small) matter"
"a dispute over niggling details"
"limited to petty enterprises"
"piffling efforts"
"giving a police officer a free meal may be against the law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction"
{adj: generous} not petty in character and mind
"unusually generous in his judgment of people"
<-> ungenerous
{adj: grudging, niggardly, scrimy} petty or reluctant in giving or spending
"a niggardly tip"
{adj: junior-grade, inferior, lower-ranking, lowly, petty, secondary, subaltern, subordinate} inferior in rank or status
"the junior faculty"
"a lowly corporal"
"petty officialdom"
"a subordinate functionary"
{adj: little} small in a way that arouses feelings (of tenderness or its opposite depending on the context)
"a nice little job"
"bless your little heart"
"my dear little mother"
"a sweet little deal"
"I'm tired of your petty little schemes"
"filthy little tricks"
"what a nasty little situation"
{adj: petty, small-minded} contemptibly narrow in outlook
"petty little comments"
"disgusted with their small-minded pettiness"
{adj: uninfluenced, unswayed, untouched} not influenced or affected
"stewed in its petty provincialism untouched by the brisk debates that stirred the old world"- V.L.Parrington
"unswayed by personal considerations"
{adv: bureaucratically} in a bureaucratic manner
"his bureaucratically petty behavior annoyed her"
{adv: pettily} in a petty way
{n: American spikenard, petty morel, life-of-man, Aralia racemosa} unarmed woody rhizomatous perennial plant distinguished from wild sarsaparilla by more aromatic roots and panicled umbels; southeastern North America to Mexico
{n: bicker, bickering, spat, tiff, squabble, pettifoggery, fuss} a quarrel about petty points
{n: boatswain, bos'n, bo's'n, bosun, bo'sun} a petty officer on a merchant ship who controls the work of other seamen
{n: broom tree, needle furze, petty whin, Genista anglica} prickly yellow-flowered shrub of the moors of New England and Europe
{n: cangue} an instrument of punishment formerly used in China for petty criminals; consists of a heavy wooden collar enclosing the neck and arms
{n: carper, niggler} someone who constantly criticizes in a petty way
{n: chief petty officer} a person with the senior noncommissioned naval rank
{n: death squad} a clandestine military or paramilitary team who murder political dissidents or petty criminals (usually with the government's tacit approval)
{n: detraction, petty criticism} a petty disparagement
{n: discouragement} the act of discouraging
"the discouragement of petty theft"
{n: faultfinding, carping} persistent petty and unjustified criticism
{n: indiscretion, peccadillo} a petty misdeed
{n: master-at-arms} the senior petty officer; responsible for discipline aboard ship
{n: petit bourgeois, petite bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie} lower middle class (shopkeepers and clerical staff etc.)
{n: petit juror, petty juror} a member of a petit jury
{n: petit jury, petty jury} a jury of 12 to determine the facts and decide the issue in civil or criminal proceedings
{n: petit larceny, petty larceny, petty} larceny of property having a value less than some amount (the amount varies by locale)
<-> grand larceny
{n: pettiness, triviality, slightness, puniness} the quality of being unimportant and petty or frivolous
{n: petty apartheid} racial segregation enforced primarily in public transportation and hotels and restaurants and other public places
{n: petty cash} a small fund of cash that a firm keeps for the payment of incidental expenses
{n: petty officer, PO, P.O.} a noncommissioned officer in the navy with a rank comparable to sergeant in the army
{n: petty spurge, devil's milk, Euphorbia peplus} an Old World spurge introduced as a weed in the eastern United States
{n: princeling} a petty or insignificant prince who rules some unimportant principality
{n: punctilio} a fine point of etiquette or petty formality
{n: quibbler, caviller, caviler, pettifogger} a disputant who quibbles; someone who raises annoying petty objections
{v: quibble, niggle, pettifog, bicker, squabble, brabble} argue over petty things
"Let's not quibble over pennies"
{v: spat} engage in a brief and petty quarrel
So young, tight-lipped Sheppard, still in his teens, only five feet four inches tall, and very slender and pale, became a petty thief, then a highwayman, with no future to hope for except the gallows or rival's bullet.
年纪轻轻、沉默寡言的谢泼德，身高仅有五英尺四英寸，身材瘦削，脸色苍白，尚未成年就成了行窃好手，继而拦路抢劫。除了绞刑架或对手的枪弹外，他没有未来可以期待。
If the laptop has fallen into the wrong hands--and not just those of a petty thief--it would not only reveal much about what the U. S. knows of the spread of weapons around the world, but also could alert adversaries that the U.S. is spying on them and how.
如果这台电脑落入别有用心的人之手－而不是微不足道的小偷手中－那就不仅仅是泄漏美国所知道的遍及全世界的武器分布的大部分信息，而且还会引起对手们的警觉，让他们知道美国正对他们进行侦察监视，以及知道美国是如何侦察监视他们的。
BE PETTY: On those really bad days, you may want to head over to pinstruck.com, where you can send an online voodoo curse to the annoying guy across the hall.
泄私愤：在心情特别不愉快的日子里，你可能想一头扎进 pinstruck.com 网站，在那里给大厅对面那个讨厌的家伙发送一句伏都教的咒语。
51 paragraphs, 98 lines displayed. Top
(Alt+Z : Reinput words.) (You can doubleclick on the English words you are searching for.)
