paltry

Modifying Another Word

• rather: Suddenly your MA or MSc seems rather paltry as you contemplate the competition you're up against in getting a job.
• so: This may look a long period for so paltry a world.
• very: Unfortunately, a very paltry amount of time was given to that amendment, as so often happens in another place.
• pretty: Although investment is at record levels, it is still pretty paltry.
• too: These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man are too paltry for an Omnipotent Being.
• often: Fines for successful prosecutions are often paltry, but have been as high £ 101,000.

Preposition: by

• comparison: The arguments against it are, in real terms, paltry by comparison.

Modifies a noun

• sum: To put these patients at risk for a paltry sum of £ 16,000 a year is beyond belief.
• salary: Getting nowhere, the workers offered the ministry a simple choice: increase their paltry salaries or they would all join the armed resistance.
• amount: Sheep and camels are also on sale for paltry amounts.
• figure: This puts India's paltry figure of 0.7 miles well into the shade.
• fee: Paul Robinson is rumored to be on the verge of signing for Crewe Alexandra for the paltry fee of £ 75,000.
• return: Yet whilst this seems a paltry return for your thirty notes, there's the small matter of the high-score table to consider.

Used with adjective complement

• seem: O f course, there's still the Crown regalia, which even today seem paltry compared to the regalia of other countries.