Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Unworthy of serious attention; trivial.
  • adjective Inappropriately silly.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Of little weight, worth, or importance; not worth notice; slight; trifling; trivial: as, a frivolous argument; a frivolous objection or pretext.
  • Given to trifling; characterized by unbecoming levity; silly; weak.
  • Specifically, in law, so clearly insufficient as to need no argument to show its weakness: as, a frivolous answer or plea.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • adjective Of little weight or importance; not worth notice; slight.
  • adjective Given to trifling; marked with unbecoming levity; silly; interested especially in trifling matters.

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

  • adjective Silly, especially at an inappropriate time or in an inappropriate manner.
  • adjective Of little weight or importance; not worth notice; slight.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • adjective not serious in content or attitude or behavior

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, probably from Latin frīvolus, of little value, probably from friāre, to crumble.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Latin frīvolus ("silly, empty, trifling, frivolous, worthless").

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word frivolous.

Examples

  • ANDERSON: Well, as I pointed out earlier, you know, most meals are eaten at home and these lawsuits really do give the term frivolous a bad name.

    CNN Transcript Mar 1, 2003 2003

  • In the months leading up to her July resignation as Alaska governor, her legal bills had mounted to more than $500,000, fueled mostly by what she called frivolous ethics complaints.

    Palin Book EXCERPTS Released: Read Them 2009

  • Now recall, Wolf, that when Palin announced that she's stepping down, she cited, in part, the endless ethics complaints against her, which she called frivolous and she said that the legal bills were more than $500,000.

    CNN Transcript Jul 21, 2009 2009

  • Palin has said one of the reasons she's stepping down is because of what she called frivolous ethics complaints by political operatives descending on Alaska.

    CNN Transcript Jul 13, 2009 2009

  • Palin has said one of the reasons she's stepping down is because of what she called frivolous ethics complaints by political operatives descending on Alaska.

    CNN Transcript Jul 13, 2009 2009

  • Some of his other pet issues including what he calls frivolous lawsuits.

    CNN Transcript Feb 8, 2005 2005

  • The president spoke today in Detroit, Michigan, about asbestos litigation and the need to limit what he called frivolous lawsuits.

    CNN Transcript Jan 7, 2005 2005

  • I'm worried about the -- what I call frivolous lawsuits that make it hard for docs to practice medicine and run up the cost of medicine.

    CNN Transcript Nov 3, 2003 2003

  • She said she resigned her governorship because she ran up $500,000 in debt defending herself against what she called frivolous claims.

    The Washington Post: National, World & D.C. Area News and Headlines - washingtonpost.com 2011

  • And that, my friends, is what we call a frivolous lawsuit.

    Forbes.com: News Victoria Pynchon 2011

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.

  • not serious in content or attitude or behavior

    Compared to Juliet's passionate concern for human rights, Jake's non-stop concern about football seems somewhat frivolous.

    October 12, 2016