paltry
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day
Merriam-Webster
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🗓️ 9 December 2025
⏱️ 2 minutes
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Summary
Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for December 9, 2025 is:
paltry • \PAWL-tree\ • adjective
Paltry is a formal word that can describe something that is very small or too small in amount, or something that has little meaning, importance, or worth.
// They're offering a paltry salary for the position.
// The professor announced they'd finally had enough of the students' paltry excuses for being late to class.
Examples:
"When the witty and wry English fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett interviewed Bill Gates for GQ in 1995, only 39% of Americans had access to a home computer. According to the Pew Research Center, the number who were connected to the internet was a paltry 14%." — Ed Simon, LitHub.com, 25 Nov. 2024
Did you know?
Before paltry was an adjective, it was a noun meaning trash. That now-obsolete noun came from palt or pelt, a dialect term referring to a piece of coarse cloth, or more broadly, to trash. The adjective paltry, which dates to the mid-16th century, originally described things considered worthless, or of very low quality, but it's gained a number of meanings over the centuries, none of which are complimentary. A paltry house might be neglected and unfit for occupancy; a paltry trick is a trick that is low-down and dirty; a paltry excuse is a poor one; and a paltry sum is small and insufficient.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Word of the Day podcast for December 9th. |
| 0:11.8 | Today's word is paltry, spelled P-A-L-T-R-Y. Paltry is an adjective. It's a formal word that can |
| 0:20.0 | describe something that is very small |
| 0:21.9 | or too small in amount or something that has little meaning, importance, or worth. |
| 0:27.7 | Here's the word used in a sentence from lithub.com by Ed Simon. |
| 0:32.4 | When the witty and wry English fantasy novelist Terry Pratchett interviewed Bill Gates for GQ in 1995. |
| 0:40.8 | Only 39% of Americans had access to a home computer. |
| 0:45.3 | According to the Pew Research Center, the number who were connected to the internet was |
| 0:49.9 | a paltry 14%. |
| 0:51.4 | Before paltry was an adjective, it was a noun meaning trash. That now-obsolete noun |
| 0:59.1 | came from palt or pelt, a dialect term referring to a piece of coarse cloth, or more broadly, to |
| 1:06.8 | trash. The adjective paltry, which dates to the mid-16th century, originally described |
| 1:12.6 | things considered worthless, or of very low quality, but it's gained a number of meanings |
| 1:17.8 | over the centuries, none of which are complementary. A paltry house might be neglected and |
| 1:23.7 | unfit for occupancy. A paltry trick is a trick that is low down and dirty. |
| 1:29.2 | A paltry excuse is a poor one, |
| 1:31.3 | and a paltry sum is small and insufficient. |
| 1:35.3 | With your word of the day, I'm Peter Sokolowski. |
| 1:42.7 | Visit Miriamwebster.com today for definitions, wordplay, and trending word lookups. |
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