The Word of the Day for August 05 is:


small beer \SMAWL-BEER\ noun

1 : weak or inferior beer
2 : something of small importance : trivia

Example sentence:
The player was fined $10,000 by the league for his comments about the opposing pitcher, but that's small beer when you consider his $15 million salary.

Did you know?
"Small beer" dates from Shakespeare's day. The Bard didn't coin it (he would have been just a child in 1568, the date of the first documented instance of "small beer"), but he did put the term to good use. In Henry VI, Part 2, for example, the rebel Jack Cade declares that, when he becomes king, he will "make it felony to drink small beer." In Othello, Desdemona asks Iago to describe a "deserving woman." Iago responds by listing praises for ten lines, only to conclude that such a woman would be suited "to suckle fools, and chronicle small beer"; in other words, to raise babies and keep track of insignificant household expenses. Desdemona quickly retorts, declaring Iago's assertion a "most lame and impotent conclusion."