Your minde is toſſing on the Ocean, / There vvhere your Argoſies vvith portly ſayle, / Like Signiors and rich Burgars on the flood, / Or as it vvere the Pageants of the ſea, / Doe ouer-peere thepetty traffiquers / That curſie to them, do them reuerence / As they flie by them vvith their vvouen vvings.
I could have liv'd likeHengiſt, King ofKent, /London,York,Lincoln, andVVincheſter, / Under the povver of my Command, the portion / Of my moſt juſt deſert, enjoyed novv / Bypettier Deſervers.
Yea, he did hold me to it at that rate alſo, about a great many more things than here I relate; as, that it was aſhame to ſit vvhining and mourning under a Sermon, and aſhame to come ſighing and groaning home. That it was aſhame to ask my Neighbour forgiveneſs forpetty faults, or to make restitution vvhere I have taken from any:[…]
1736,[Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède], “Part III. Book III.”, in Robert Loveday, transl.,Hymen’s Præludia: Or, Love’s Master-piece: Being that So-much-admir’d Romance, Intitled, Cleopatra.[…], volume II, London:[…] J. Watson,[…],→OCLC,page282:
[H]is VVords vvere ranged vvith more care and leſs confidence than before, and in all his Actions he eſſay'd to beſpeak me an opinion, that the VVorld could not offer him an employment vvhich vvas not leſs important and conſiderable in his thoughts, than thepettieſt occaſion to ſerve and pleaſe me.
I show thee what thy predecessors are, / And what theywere thou feelest, in degree / Inferior as thypetty feelings and / Thypettier portion of the immortal part / Of high intelligence and earthly strength.
Who would rot on the moor-side forgotten, / Slaughtered bickering for somepetty town, / While the rich East blooms fragrant before us, / And all fairy land beckons us on?
Thepettiest creature in Heaven will be the most noble of Earth, and the most noble of Earth thepettiest in Heaven.
2018 February,Robert Draper, “They are Watching You—and Everything Else on the Planet: Technology and Our Increasing Demand for Security have Put Us All under Surveillance. Is Privacy Becoming just a Memory?”, inNational Geographic[1], Washington, D.C.:National Geographic Society,→ISSN,→OCLC, archived fromthe original on14 June 2018:
Later today in Finsbury Park, the cameras would spend hours panning across 35,000 festivalgoers in search of pickpockets, drunken brawlers, and other assorted agents ofpetty mischief.
[C]ommonly, it is leſſe diſhonourable, to abridgepettie Charges, then to ſtoope topettie Gettings.
1856 March 6,Florence Nightingale, “The ‘Confidential Report’[Letter to Uncle Sam Smith]”, in Sue M. Goldie, editor,Florence Nightingale: Letters from the Crimea 1854–1856, Manchester, New York, N.Y.: Mandolin,Manchester University Press, published1997,→ISBN,page225:
I will give you the slightest,pettiest instance of the hindrance which thepettiest official can make out here, if so minded.[…] [T]he Senior Purveyor at Balaclava refuses to cash my Cheques, for no other reason discoverable than the love ofpetty annoyance & the hope of injuring my credit, in the minds of ignorant servants.
He began to walk up and down the room, and she grew more and more vexed at his dignified behaviour. She had counted on his beingpetty. It would have made things easier for her. By a cruel irony she was drawing but all that was finest in his disposition.
But while in the beginning those political criteria [in Italian railway construction] were grandiose and national, just and even necessary, later they were to becomepettier andpettier, to the point that they were almost always more regional than rational.
Their conversations had become more fearful, even superstitious in the past month. They called her a ghost, or a demon, or a monster. She once found one of them crying in the graveyard after midnight, praying in Latin, begging forgiveness, and she gave it to him after putting the scissor blade through his aorta. She didn't see any point in beingpetty. They were all going to die, and that would settle their accounts with her.
All of the horrors that happen in the book are based on real incidents, including the burning of her father's books in their front yard. "It was just a verypetty, ugly thing to do, to say 'Fuck you' to academics and intellectuals," she says. " I can't imagine losing my books, the books I love."
1756 June 13, J[ames] M[urphy] French, “[Letters, Correspondence, and Poetry, of James Murphy French.] To Henry Duncombe, Esq.”, inJesse Foot,The Life ofArthur Murphy, Esq., London:[…][F]or J. Faulder,[…]; byJohn Nichols and Son,[…], published1811,→OCLC,page123:
Friends are separated for long portions of time even while they live; at last they take their leave for ever: although, I remember, when you left me in thepetty form at Westminster, I soon afterwards found you in a higher remove: and this world is only thepetty form of the universe; so I not only expect to pass a social hour with you here, but am in hopes of a merry meeting in a better place;[…]
1813, M[ichael] Russel, “[Appendix.] No. II. On Westminster School.”, inView of the System of Education at Present Pursued in the Schools and Universities of Scotland.[…], Edinburgh:[…] John Moir,[…], sold by Bell & Bradfute,[…],→OCLC,page xx:
This finishes their education in the under school, in which they have now been three years and a half, and they are next moved into the upper, and probably at the age of ten or eleven; six or seven being the age at which boys are generally sent into thepetty form.
1819 July 5, “Fulham.[The Latymer, or Boys Charity School, at Hammersmith.]”, inSecond Report of the Commissioners Appointed in Pursuance of an Act of the 58th Year of His Present Majesty, Cap. 91. Intituled An Act for Appointing Commissioners to Enquire Concerning Charities in England, for the Education of the Poor (House of Lords, the Sessional Papers 1801–1833; 100, part II),[London]: [House of Commons of the United Kingdom],→OCLC,page86:
[T]he feoffees should cause the boys to be put to somepetty school to learn to read English till they attain 13, and to instruct them in some part of God's true religion.
[O]riginally there were six forms in the school; of these the highest was called the Sixth. Afterwards, the number of forms was increased to eight; the highest was still called the Sixth, but the Fourth form was divided into two, the Fourth and the Fourth Division, and the First into two also, the First and thePetty or Anonymous form.[…] Some alterations were made, then or soon after, lower down in the school. The Fifth form was subdivided into the upper and lower Fifth; the Division into the upper and lower Division; and thePetty form was abolished.
To morrow, and to morrow, and to morrow, / Creepes in thispetty pace from day to day, / To the laſt Syllable of Recorded time: / And all our yeſterdayes, haue lighted Fooles / The way to duſty death.
3. Out[law].[…] My ſelfe vvas fromVerona baniſhed, / For practiſing to ſteale avvay a Lady, / And heire and Neece, alide vnto the Duke. /[…] /1. Out[law]. And I, for ſuch likepetty crimes as theſe.
1655,Thomas Fuller, “Section IV. To the Master, Wardens, and All the Members of the Honourable Company of Mercers, of London.”, inThe Church-history of Britain;[…], London:[…] Iohn Williams[…],→OCLC,(please specify |book=I to XI), subsection 3–7 (Brown’s Opinions.[…]),page64:
With his [Robert Brown's] assistant, Richard Harrison, apetty pedagogue, they inveighed against bishops, ecclesiastical courts, ceremonies, ordination of ministers, and what not; fancying here on earth a platform of a perfect church, without any faults (understand it thus,save those that are made by themselves) therein.
At the time the poem we are now treating of was written, the dissensions of the barons, who were then so manypetty princes, ran very high, whether they quarrelled among themselves, or with their neighbours, and produced unspeakable calamities to the country.
Can there an Example be given in the whole Courſe of this War, where we have treated thepettieſt Prince, with whom we had to deal, in ſo contemptuous a manner?
Under moderate governments, the law is prudent in all its parts, perfectly well known, and thepettieſt magiſtrates are capable of following it. But in a deſpotic ſtate where the prince's will is the law, though the prince were wiſe, yet how could the magiſtrate follow a will he does not know?
Fear, pity, juſtice, indignation ſtart, / Tear off reſerve, and bare my ſwelling heart; / 'Till half a patriot, half a coward grown, / I fly frompetty tyrants to the throne.
[I]n treſpaſs all are principals, becauſe the law,quae de minimis non curat, does not deſcend to diſtinguiſh the different ſhades of guilt inpetty miſdemeſnors. It is a maxim, thatacceſſorius ſequitur naturam ſui principalis: and therefore an acceſſory cannot be guilty of a higher crime than his principal; being only puniſhed, as a partaker of his guilt. So that if a ſervant inſtigates a ſtranger to kill his maſter, this being murder in the ſtranger as principal, of courſe the ſervant is acceſſory only to the crime of murder; though, had he been preſent and aſſiſting, he would have been guilty as principal ofpetty treaſon, and the ſtranger of murder.
The ire of the monarch was not to be appeased. He had suffered in his person, and he had suffered in his purse; his dignity too had been insulted, and that went for something; for dignity is always more irascible the morepetty the potentate.
of persons or their behaviour: marked by or reflective of undesirably limited interests, sympathies, or views; preoccupied with subjects having little or no importance and not mindful of broader concerns
If these houses had been built by his Lordship every one would have had hispetty, at all events dividing the odour & also having a chance thatsome of the occupiers would clean out—but acommon occupation is nobody's business, unless the owner of all the buildings takes it in hand.
Cottages occupied by Betty Hines and others;petty in a very filthy state, wants walling. Twopetties belonging to Mr. James Parr to be walled, and one next Thomas Wilkinson's to be removed further off.
1868 January 1, “The Sanitary Condition of Manchester”, inThe Manchester Monthly Record and Advertiser, Manchester:Abel Heywood and Son,[…]; London: Simpkin, Marshall, and Co.; and Heywood and Co.,[…],→OCLC,page32:
We have an evil in the excretal deposits, and in the ashes an antidote; but instead of applying the antidote, we keep the evil to itself, and suffer it to exercise its unmitigated power over the health of the household.[…] Now the simple remedy for this would be, to construct thepetties with several steps upward and backward, so as to be more over the centre of the ash-pit.[…] Such an arrangement would ensure the mingling of the ashes with the excreta, by which the latter would be deodorised, and the evil suppressed.
1808–1810 (date written),William Hickey, “Early School Days”, in Alfred Spencer, editor,Memoirs of William Hickey, 7th edition, volumesI (1749–1775), London:Hurst & Blackett,[…], published[1913?],→OCLC,page13:
[…] I took my seat in what was denominated, "The Idle Class", that is, at the very bottom of the school, where all those who have not received some previous instruction in Latin are placed. I however soon got out of that disgraceful and ignorant form, passed with rapidity andeclat the under and upperpetty, and entered into the upper first,[…]
[S]uch a difference of age between lads at a public school puts intimacy out of the question—a junior ensign being no more familiar with the commander-in-chief at the Horse-Guards; or a barrister on his first circuit with my Lord Chief Justice on the bench, than the newly-breeched infant in thePetties with a senior boy in a tailed coat.
1589, attributed toThomas Nashe, “To the Discreet and Indifferent Reader”, inMartins Months Minde, that is, A Certaine Report, and True Description of the Death, and Funerals, of Olde Martin Marre-prelate, the Great Makebate of England, and Father of the Factions.[…]; republished inAlexander B[alloch] Grosart, editor,The Complete Works of Thomas Nashe.[…] (The Huth Library), volume I, [London; Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire:[…]Hazell, Watson, and Viney] for private circulation only,1883–1884,→OCLC,page150:
[S]ome of them, which were thePetties and Punies of that ſchoole, whereof oldMartin [Marprelate] was the maſter; though then he was but as ſome blinde and obſcure pariſh Clarke that taught in the Belfrie, not preſuming, as hee doth nowe, to preſſe into the Church, (that place in reſpect of the appurtenances being fitter for him) began but rawly with their little a, b, c.
As the maiden therefore vvas comming into the market place, (for there vvere the ſchools forpeties kept, of reading and vvriting) the Decemvirs man (a broker to ſerve his maſters luſt) laid hold upon her, avovving that ſhe vvas his bond-ſervants daughter, and therefore his bond-maid: commanding her to follovv him, and threatning beſides, that if ſhe made any ſtays, he vvould have her avvay perforce.
1849, P. J. Mannex, “History, Topography, and Directory, of Furness and Cartmel, in Lancashire”, inHistory, Topography, and Directory, of Westmorland; and Lonsdale North of the Sands, in Lancashire;[…], London: Simpkin, Marshall, & Co.,[…]; Beverley, Yorkshire:[…] W. B. Johnson,[…],→OCLC,page377:
TheFree Grammar School, at Cartmel, was originally only a parochial seminary, under the superintendence of the churchwardens and sidesmen of the parish, who, for a series of years, hired a master to whom they paid the interest of a few small bequests, the remainder of his salary being made up by quarterage from the scholars, except the children of poor parents, who were taught free. In 1635, the quarterage from grammarians was sixpence, and forpetties, little ones, fourpence.[…] In 1674, the quarterage for grammarians was raised to 8d., but no alteration was made for thepetties.
petty in Géza Bárczi,László Országh,et al., editors,A magyar nyelv értelmező szótára [The Explanatory Dictionary of the Hungarian Language] (ÉrtSz.), Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1959–1962.Fifth ed., 1992:→ISBN.
, Oxford:Oxford University Press, December 2021;“petty,adj.”, inLexico,Dictionary.com;Oxford University Press,2019–2022.
petty (disambiguation) on Wikipedia.Wikipedia