She had a long history--millennia long--of torturing the men who had annoyed her in some trifling way, or maybe just for the bleep of it, and finally driving them to suicide.

Now Selbert had been thinking somewhat along those very lines, but in a trifling way.

Occasionally he even caters to them by sending down an edict limiting the power of the nobles in some trifling way.

Now that they're global, we can't do that, except in trifling ways in individual territories.

He just explained your trifling ways to me: 'What trifling ways?'

It seemed but a trifling way up--perhaps a hundred yards, a climb of ten minutes.

Lazarus wanted to kiss Uncle Ned and thank him for those "trifling ways" that made kinship plausible.

He encouraged Tiberius to cross Livia in trifling ways, to show her that she over-estimated the strength of her position.

Sink the title thou hast uttered- 'tis treason; we be bad men, in some few trifling ways, but none among us is so base as to be traitor to his king; we be loving and loyal hearts, in that regard.

But that had resulted only in conjectures concerning dear old Uncle Ned and his "trifling ways," ones that Mother did not mind listening to, once she was certain that her guest was not embarrassed.