Definition of Small beer

1. Noun. Something of small importance.

Exact synonyms: Trifle, Trivia, Triviality
Generic synonyms: Object, Physical Object
Specialized synonyms: Bagatelle, Fluff, Frippery, Frivolity
Derivative terms: Trivial, Trivial

Definition of Small beer

1. Noun. (&lit small beer) ¹

2. Noun. Beer with a low alcoholic content ¹

3. Noun. (chiefly British) Something that is of relatively little importance. ¹

¹ Source: wiktionary.com

Lexicographical Neighbors of Small Beer

small-scale
small-talk
small-time
small-timer
small-town
small-townish
small "d" democrat
small "d" democrats
small "l" liberal
small "r" republican
small "r" republicans
small arms
small arteries
small ball
small beer (current term)
small blind
small blue
small blues
small boat
small bowel dilatation
small bowel disease
small bowel disease involving mesentery
small bowel disease involving stomach
small bowel disease involving terminal ileum
small bowel enema
small bowel infiltration
small bowel lymphoma
small bowel nodules
small bowel obstruction

Literary usage of Small beer

Below you will find example usage of this term as found in modern and/or classical literature:

1. Methods of Practical Hygiene by Karl Bernhard Lehmann (1893)
"small beer. § 382. small beer (convent, schops,1 &c.). There are drawn thin beers for workmen and servants, containing only 1 to 2 per cent, extract, ..."

2. The Encyclopedia Americana: A Library of Universal Knowledge (1918)
"Up to 1823 beer was classed into strong beer and small beer, the former being beer of the value of \6s. and upward the barrel, the latter beer below this ..."

3. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: Giving the Derivation, Source, Or Origin of by Ebenezer Cobham Brewer (1898)
"To suckle fools and chronicle small beer." (lago in the play of Othello, ii. 1.) " To express her self-esteem [It might b« said] that she did not think ..."

4. A Glossary: Or, Collection of Words, Phrases, Names, and Allusions to by Robert Nares (1859)
"Grose says, "small beer, formerly sold at six shillings the barrel." Class. Diet. Mr. Steevens also says that small beer still goes by the cant name of ..."

5. English Prose: Selections edited by Henry Craik (1908)
"A PARABLE OF small beer IN old heathen times there was, they say, a whimsical country, where the people talked much of religion, and the greatest part as to ..."

6. English Prose: Selections by Henry Craik (1894)
"A PARABLE OF small beer IN old heathen times there was, they say, a whimsical country, where the people talked much of religion, and the greatest part as to ..."

7. The Living Age by Making of America Project, Eliakim Littell, Robert S. Littell (1913)
"'FELONY TO DRINK small beer." BY Hi it JAMES I. Lanyon frowned at the newsboy. A poet missing? Well, and why not? "In every one of us a poet lies dead! ..."

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