picayune

Syllables: pic·a·yune/ˌpɪkəˈjuːn/US/ˌpɪkəˈjun/

picayune noun: a small coin of the value of six-and-a-quarter cents; a Spanish coin with a value of half a real; a fippenny bit.

Image: Missouri History Museum, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun

picayune (plural picayunes)

(Louisiana, US, especially, historical) A small coin of the value of six-and-a-quarter cents; a Spanish coin with a value of half a real; a fippenny bit.
(US, archaic, broadly) A coin worth five cents (a nickel) or some other low value.
(US, figuratively, informal) A person regarded as unworthy of respect or useless; also, something of very little value; a trifle.

Synonyms:

absolute zero, also-ran, chopped liver, cipher, crumb, Joe Nobody, little guy, minnow, nebbish, nobody
(US, figuratively, informal) An argument, fact, or other issue raised (often intentionally) that distracts from a larger issue or fails to make any difference.

Adjective

picayune (comparative more picayune, superlative most picayune)

(US, informal) Of little consequence; small and of little importance; petty, trivial.
- He seeks to demonstrate that he is the heir to a British title, though he is in fact the orphan of American circus dwarfs. It has been proved to him that his parents were picayune, but he finds this unbearable.1966 September 22, Kurt Vonnegut, “The Fall of a Climber”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 4
- It's also representative of a psychological syndrome that I notice has gotten steadily worse as the Cruise wears on, a mental list of dissatisfactions and grievances that started picayune but has quickly become nearly despair-grade.1997, David Foster Wallace, “A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again”, in A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments, Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown and Company, →ISBN
Synonyms:

picayunish, base, contemptible, floccinaucinihilipilificatious, foolish, for the birds, futile, frivolous, idle, ignorable
(US, informal) Childishly spiteful; tending to go on about unimportant things; small-minded.

Synonyms:

peevish, petty

picayune meaning in Urdu

picayune in Urdu

ادنیٰ, بےمصرف, چھوٹا, حقیر, ناکارہ

Synonyms of picayune

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of picayune

Forms of picayune

Noun
plural	picayunes
Adjective
comparative	more picayune
superlative	most picayune

Origin of picayune

The noun is borrowed from southern French picaillon, pécaillon, picayon (“type of small foreign coin; (informal, especially in the plural) cash, money”), and from its etymon Occitan picalhon, picaioun (“cheaply made Savoyan-Piedmontese coin that was rapidly demonetized; (by extension) cash, money”), probably from Occitan piquar (“to ring (bells); to knock, strike”) (referring to the clinking of coins in a pocket), originally imitative. The adjective is derived from the noun.

Words formed from picayune

picayuneish
picayunish
picayunishness
picayunity
picayunely
picayuneness

Words that rhyme with picayune

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about picayune

What does picayune mean?: Picayune means a small coin of the value of six-and-a-quarter cents; a Spanish coin with a value of half a real; a fippenny bit.
What is picayune in Urdu?: Picayune in Urdu is ادنیٰ, بےمصرف, چھوٹا. See Picayune meaning in Urdu.
What part of speech is picayune?: Picayune can be a noun or an adjective.
How do you pronounce picayune?: Picayune is pronounced /ˌpɪkəˈjuːn/ (UK).
What is the plural of picayune?: The plural of picayune is picayunes.

Words near picayune in the dictionary

Adapted from Wiktionary: picayune (page history and authors); picayune (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-picayune.wav.

Cite this entry: “picayune.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/picayune. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.