small beer

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small beer

1. Weak or inferior beer.

2. Unimportant things; trivia.

adj.

Trivial; unimportant.

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

small beer

informal chiefly Brit people or things of no importance

Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged, 12th Edition 2014 © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2011, 2014

small′ beer′

1. weak beer.

2. Slang. trivial matters.

Small Beer

any collection of trifles or trifling matters.

ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:

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Noun

small beer - something of small importance

trivia, triviality, trifle

object, physical object - a tangible and visible entity; an entity that can cast a shadow; "it was full of rackets, balls and other objects"

frippery, frivolity, bagatelle, fluff - something of little value or significance

Translations

شيء غَيْر مُهِم

bezvýznamná věc

barnemad

kleiner Fisch

hilulillukanvarsiykkösolut

broutille

lényegtelen

lítilræîi

barnemat

lättöl

önemsiz şey/kimse

琐事

beer

(biə) noun

a type of alcoholic drink made from malted barley flavoured with hops.

small beer

something unimportant. This is small beer compared with his usual work.

Mentioned in ?

References in classic literature ?

He resumed this occupation when he was replete with beef, had sucked up all the gravy in the baking-dish with the flat of his knife, and had drawn liberally on a barrel of small beer in the scullery.

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The custom of the shop fell off, because a story got abroad that she soured her small beer and other damageable commodities, by scowling on them.

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Here there was a hole about six feet deep and twelve feet across, over which the puffing urchins struggled to the opposite side, and thought no small beer of themselves for having been out of their depths.

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Half-a-dozen dishes stood upon the shelves; the table was laid for supper with a bowl of porridge, a horn spoon, and a cup of small beer. Besides what I have named, there was not another thing in that great, stone-vaulted, empty chamber but lockfast chests arranged along the wall and a corner cupboard with a padlock.

"Your father was very fond of his meat, I mind; he was a hearty, if not a great eater; but as for me, I could never do mair than pyke at food." He took a pull at the small beer, which probably reminded him of hospitable duties, for his next speech ran thus: "If ye're dry ye'll find water behind the door."

The table was laid with two bowls and two horn spoons, but the same single measure of small beer. Perhaps my eye rested on this particular with some surprise, and perhaps my uncle observed it; for he spoke up as if in answer to my thought, asking me if I would like to drink ale -- for so he called it.

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Now, in times past all went wrong with me, and every month found a fresh hole in my cassock and in my skin, a gold crown less in my poor purse; of that execrable time of small beer and see-saw, I regret absolutely nothing, nothing, nothing save our friendship; for within me I have a heart, and it is a miracle that heart has not been dried up by the wind of poverty which passed through the holes of my cloak, or pierced by the swords of all shapes which passed through the holes in my poor flesh."

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Defuncti injuria ne afficiantur was a law of the twelve tables, and De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction -- even if the dead in question be nothing but dead small beer. It is not my design, therefore, to vituperate my deceased friend, Toby Dammit.

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"First, that on the above-mentioned Feast of the Assumption, small beer having been served to the novices in the proportion of one quart to each four, the said brother John did drain the pot at one draught to the detriment of brother Paul, brother Porphyry and brother Ambrose, who could scarce eat their none-meat of salted stock-fish on account of their exceeding dryness,"

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Small Beer canned: Small Beer Brewing Co has launched its first beer in a can.

grocery digest

A new range from the Small Beer Brew Co includes three core beers, (Lager, Dark Lager and Steam) which all have an abv between 0.5% and 2.8%.

RAISE A GLASS

The Original Small Beer Dark Lager, left, was my favourite, a brooding glass similar to a porter, full of caramel, raisins, toast and chocolate.