penny ante
1
7.9
- noun
- /ˈpɛni ˈænti/
- Informal
:
de poca importancia
- How long are you and Betty gonna live on those penny-ante royalties you get?
Examples
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Besides, it's a penny-ante game.
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Forget about this penny ante stuff.
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Why he ever started this cheap penny-ante Building and Loan I'll never know.
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They spent all their time on penny-ante stuff.
Blog text (27) -
All my life, I've been chiseling in penny-ante games.
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They spent the afternoon playing a penny ante poker game at the local cafe, joking and having fun.
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He dismissed the entire argument as penny ante, not worth discussing seriously.
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Most of the expenses for the project turned out to be penny ante compared to the overall budget.
Synonyms
A casual card game played for very small amounts of money
A very small amount of money that is not worth much
A very small amount of money that is not worth much
A very small amount of money or a small favor given as a token
A very small amount of money or something of little value
Very common and not worth much
Antonyms
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase literally combines 'penny' (a very small coin) with 'ante' (a stake/amount put up to play), so the idea of very small stakes and therefore something trivial is directly derivable from the constituents. This compositional meaning is straightforward and cross-linguistically intuitive, so a B1 learner who knows the words would likely infer the MWE's sense.
Etymology
Penny ante comes from old poker games where the first bet, the ante, was only a penny. Because the money was tiny and the game was not serious, people used penny ante to mean 'not important'.