- 1微不足道的、芝麻綠豆大的（美式，偏書面）
If something is picayune, it is small and not worth making a fuss about — a tiny complaint, a tiny sum, a detail nobody needed to fight over. The word began as the name of a very small, cheap coin in the American South. From 'worth almost nothing' it came to mean 'not important.' It is mainly American, and it sounds a bit old or like a newspaper. Younger speakers more often say petty or trivial. You may also meet it as a noun for a tiny thing or a tiny coin. In New Orleans a newspaper still carries Picayune in its name, which keeps the old coin-word alive. In everyday talk it can sound a little ; people use it when they want a dry, grown-up tone.
組成The noun was borrowed from southern French picaillon / picayon and Occitan picaioun, a cheap little coin, probably from a word meaning to knock or ring, like coins clinking. The adjective comes from that noun.
原始詞典資料6 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
picayunenoun/ˌpɪkəˈjuːn/
- 1
historicalA small coin of the value of six-and-a-quarter cents; a Spanish coin with a value of half a real; a fippenny bit.
- 2
archaicA coin worth five cents (a nickel) or some other low value.
- 3
informalA person regarded as unworthy of respect or useless; also, something of very little value; a trifle.
- 4
informalAn argument, fact, or other issue raised (often intentionally) that distracts from a larger issue or fails to make any difference.
picayuneadj/ˌpɪkəˈjuːn/
- 1
informalOf little consequence; small and of little importance; petty, trivial.
- It's also representative of a psychological syndrome that I notice has gotten steadily worse as the Cruise wears on, a mental list of dissatisfactions and grievances that started picayune but has quickly become nearly despair-grade.
- [T]here are four competing groups promoting the language – and they cannot agree even on how it should be spelled (Kernewek, Kernowek, Kernuak and Curnoack, among others). It might seem like a picayune matter, akin to the rivalry in the film "Monty Python's Life of Brian" between the Judean People's Front, the Judean Popular People's Front and the People's Front of Judea. But the issue is deadly serious to speakers of Cornish.
- 2
informalChildishly spiteful; tending to go on about unimportant things; small-minded.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。