Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun poetic An insignificant amount; a trifle

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Irish tráithnín, a stem of dried grass

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Examples

  • I’m thinking you’ll be a loyal young lad to have working around, and if you vexed me a while since with your leaguing with the girls, I wouldn’t give a thraneen for a lad hadn’t a mighty spirit in him and a gamey heart.

    Act Two John Millington 1911

  • I'm inclined to think now that if you're going—I wouldn't give a thraneen for what Doyle might do.

    General John Regan George A. Birmingham 1907

  • -- I'm thinking you'll be a loyal young lad to have working around, and if you vexed me a while since with your leaguing with the girls, I wouldn't give a thraneen for a lad hadn't a mighty spirit in him and a gamey heart.

    The Playboy of the Western World; a Comedy in Three Acts 1907

  • "I don't care a thraneen," said Doyle, "what you called me, and I'll give you leave to call me that and more every day of the week if you see your way to get the £100 out of the American gentleman."

    General John Regan George A. Birmingham 1907

  • She now sat on one side of the blind woman, and stirred her tea for her, and on the other Dan O'Beirne shook his head in regretful confirmation of the opinion pronounced by the Drumroe doctor, which was reported to be that mortal man couldn't do her a thraneen of good.

    Strangers at Lisconnel Jane Barlow 1887

  • Discoorsin 'together they'll be of all the news, and as like as not he -- or it might be she --' ill say to her -- 'I seen Con the Quare One goin' the road a while back, and he wid ne'er a thraneen of anythin 'in his hat, good or bad; the same way the other boys are; lookin' rael dacint and sinsible. '

    Strangers at Lisconnel Jane Barlow 1887

  • "Ody," she reflected, "didn't mind a thraneen what way he had things in the house, and didn't care to be keepin 'fowls, so what good' ud he get out of her at all?"

    Strangers at Lisconnel Jane Barlow 1887

  • "Hut," returned Sally, "it's not worth a thraneen; you couldn't use it even if you had it; sure it's both rusty and broken."

    The Black Prophet: A Tale Of Irish Famine Traits And Stories Of The Irish Peasantry, The Works of William Carleton, Volume Three William Carleton 1831

  • If I were to turn me toes up to-morrow there's not a human being would care a thraneen about the mather, unless it were old Von Baumser. "

    The Firm of Girdlestone Arthur Conan Doyle 1894

  • "You thraneen," she'd say, "you little trifle of a son!

    New Irish Comedies Lady Gregory 1892

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