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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Petty \Pet"ty\, adjective [Compar. {Pettier}; superl. {Pettiest}.] [OE. petit, F. petit; probably of Celtic origin, and akin to E. piece. Cf. {Petit}.] Little; trifling; inconsiderable; also, inferior; subordinate; as, a petty fault; a petty prince. --Denham.
Like a petty god I walked about, admired of all. --Milton.
{Petty averages}. See under {Average}.
{Petty cash}, money expended or received in small items or amounts.
{Petty officer}, a subofficer in the navy, as a gunner, etc., corresponding to a noncommissionned officer in the army.
Note: For petty constable, petty jury, petty larceny, petty treason, See {Petit}.
Syn: Little; diminutive; inconsiderable; inferior; trifling; trivial; unimportant; frivolous.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
petty
adjective
1: inferior in rank or status; "the junior faculty"; "a lowly corporal"; "petty officialdom"; "a subordinate functionary" [syn: {junior-grade}, {inferior}, {lower}, {lower-ranking}, {lowly}, {petty(a)}, {secondary}, {subaltern}, {subordinate}]
2: (informal terms) small and of little importance; "a fiddling sum of money"; "a footling gesture"; "our worries are lilliputian compared with those of countries that are at war"; "a little (or small) matter"; "Mickey Mouse regulations"; "a dispute over niggling details"; "limited to petty enterprises"; "piffling efforts"; "giving a police officer a free meal may be against the law, but it seems to be a picayune infraction" [syn: {fiddling}, {footling}, {lilliputian}, {little}, {Mickey Mouse}, {niggling}, {piddling}, {piffling}, {picayune}, {trivial}]
3: contemptibly narrow in outlook; "petty little comments"; "disgusted with their small-minded pettiness" [syn: {small-minded}] [also: {pettiest}, {pettier}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
176 Moby Thesaurus words for "petty": Mickey Mouse, abject, abominable, arrant, atrocious, authoritarian, base, beggarly, bickering, bigot, bigoted, borne, captious, casual, caviling, cheap, cheesy, choplogic, close, closed, constricted, contemptible, cramped, creedbound, crummy, cursory, deaf, deaf to reason, debased, deficient, degraded, depraved, depthless, despicable, dinky, dirty, disgusting, equivocatory, evasive, execrable, fanatical, few, flagrant, footling, foul, fulsome, grave, gross, grudging, hairsplitting, hedging, heinous, hidebound, illiberal, imperfect, impertinent, inadequate, incompetent, inconsequent, inconsequential, inconsiderable, inessential, inferior, insignificant, insufficient, insular, irrelevant, jerkwater, light, little, little-minded, logic-chopping, low, low-down, lumpen, maladroit, mangy, meager, mean, mean-minded, mean-spirited, measly, mediocre, mingy, miniature, minor, miserable, miserly, monstrous, narrow, narrow-hearted, narrow-minded, narrow-souled, narrow-spirited, nearsighted, nefarious, negligible, niggardly, niggling, nit-picking, no great shakes, not comparable, not in it, nugatory, obnoxious, odious, of no account, one-horse, out of it, paltering, paltry, parochial, parsimonious, peanut, peddling, pettifogging, picayune, picayunish, piddling, piffling, pimping, poky, poor, provincial, punk, puny, purblind, pussyfooting, quibbling, rank, reptilian, scabby, scrubby, scruffy, scummy, scurvy, shabby, shallow, shoddy, shoestring, short, shortsighted, shuffling, skin-deep, slight, small, small-beer, small-minded, small-time, squalid, stingy, straitlaced, stuffy, superficial, tight, tight-fisted, tinhorn, tiny, trichoschistic, trifling, trinal, trivial, two-bit, two-by-four, twopenny-halfpenny, uncatholic, uncharitable, unchivalrous, unconsidered, ungenerous, unimportant, unliberal, unmentionable, unskillful, vile, wretched
From U.S. Gazetteer (1990) [gazetteer]:
Petty, TX Zip code(s): 75470
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