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Glite Dictionary
🚽 A child's toilet 🤪 Silly or trivial
potty

potty

13 9.0
Not serious or important
  • adjective
  • /ˈpɒti/
  • UK
translation icon : tonto
  • potty mouth
  • potty humor
  • potty talk

Examples

  • Well, whoever he is, I told him you were potty about him.

    A Damsel in Distress (1937)

  • As my French teacher said, a potty mouth is a sign of a poor vocabulary.

    Blog text (29)

  • Everybody's got a potty mouth these days.

    A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (2011)

  • I know with a potty mouth like yours, you don't talk to girls that much.

    Violet (2020)

  • Don't you want people to know what a potty mouth you have?

    Blog text (30)

  • Forgive my potty mouth.

    Wreck-It Ralph (2012)

  • Rahm Emanuel is well known for his potty mouth and gutter politics.

    Blog text (2)

  • His arguments were so potty that no one could take him seriously.

  • The whole idea seemed a bit potty and not worth discussing.

  • She dismissed his suggestions as potty and trivial.

Synonyms

piddly
vspotty
  • Informal
4 7.9

A very small amount or unimportant detail

means silly or trivial rather than small in measurable amount
pooty
vspotty
  • Slang
9.9

Silly and childish in a way that is not serious

is informal and means trivial without a childish tone
tuppenny-ha'penny
vspotty
  • Archaic
9.9

Very low in value and not important

means trivial in a casual British way not about money
as trivial as a gnat's pee
vspotty
  • Informal
9.9

Very unimportant and not worth worrying about

expresses triviality but less extreme or hyperbolic in tone

Antonyms

important
∞ 1.0

A person or thing that matters a lot

serious
∞ 2.0

Important and needing careful thought because it can have large effects

Compounds

potty mouth
  • Offensive
7 9.1

A person who often says swear words

potty chair
  • Baby Talk
1 2.1

A small seat a child sits on to pee or poo when learning to use the toilet

potty seat
  • Baby Talk
1 1.8

A small seat children sit on to learn to use the toilet

potty dance
6.9

A child moving and fidgeting because they need to go to the toilet right away

How Silly

bonkers
  • Informal
8.0
potty
  • UK
13 9.0
daft
  • Informal
18 5.8
foolish
505 1.3

Surface Forms

potty positive

Morphology

potty = pot (opaque) = pot + y

The form is analyzable as pot + -y, but the modern sense 'silly, trivial, or unimportant' is not predictably derived from the noun 'pot'.

Etymology

Potty meaning 'silly' may come from the child 'potty' idea or from older slang, and one helpful way to remember it is to think of childish, unimportant behavior, which is why potty can mean 'silly' or 'trivial'.