a trifle
"a-trifle" is a 7-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“a trifle” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as an adverb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 8
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - A little, slightly.
Corpus desk
Index EN-a-trifle · a trifle · English
a trifle · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-LONG 8 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "A" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | a trifle |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Adverb |
| Letters | 8 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “a trifle” in English
Rare enough to double-check
a trifle is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as anadverb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "A little, slightly.".
We couldn't generate a plausible misspelling set for a trifle, since its letter pattern doesn't lend itself to common typo substitutions. No close-neighbour confusable shows up for this headword in our dataset, since no other headword is close enough in sound or shape to pair with it.
No explicit etymology string is stored for this entry, leaving phoneme-to-grapheme mapping as the best guide to its spelling rather than a borrowing history. The correct English form is a trifle, spelled A- -T-R-I-F-L-E.
Definition
- 1A little, slightly.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how a trifle appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Could you lend me some money? I'm a trifle short of what I need to pay the rent.
He contemplated the large well-proportioned letters and final flourish, with his head a trifle on one side for an instant […]
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.