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# paltry

«paltry» in Mova's school dictionary: **very small, too little to be worth much: a paltry sum of…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples.

### part of speech

adjective (paltrier, paltriest)

### meaning for a pupil

Paltry means very small, too little to be worth much: a paltry sum of money. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/paltry/#m1)

### sense in the lessons

in stories, a paltry reward or gift that makes someone angry; in talk, a paltry amount means hardly anything

### examples

- The king offered a paltry reward for the lost cow. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/paltry/#x1)
- He gave her a paltry handful of coins. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/paltry/#x2)
- It was a paltry risk, not worth worrying about. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/paltry/#x3)

### note

nothing for maths; «paltry» only tells you the amount is small, so use the number the problem gives.

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «paltry» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/P/paltry/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.