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Definition of Small beer
1. Noun. Something of small importance.
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
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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