#WordOfTheDay for Wednesday, April 16, 2014 picayune \ pik-ee-YOON, pik-uh- \ , adjective; 1. of little value or account; small; trifling: a picayune amount. 2. petty, carping, or prejudiced: I didnt want to seem picayune by criticizing. noun: 1. (formerly, in Louisiana, Florida, etc.) a coin equal to half a Spanish real. 2. any small coin, as a five-cent piece. 3. Informal. an insignificant person or thing. ...William Arthur Deacon, the more influential critic of the Toronto Globe and Mail , was equally picayune. -- Mavis Gallant, The Moslem Wife and Other Stories, 1994 So she had never abandoned the Eucharist; without it, she felt the Mass, and all of the Church, would be only ideas she could get at home from books; and because of it, she overlooked what was bureaucratic or picayune about the Church. -- Andre Dubus, Dancing After Hours, 1996 Picayune is rooted in the Provençal word picaioun which meant small copper coin. It is likely derivative of an onomatopoetic base pikk- which sounds like the process of beating and coining copper.
Posted on: Wed, 16 Apr 2014 12:37:06 +0000
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