Word.ws English Dictionary

small potatoes

small potatoes noun: one or more persons or things of relatively little consequence, importance, or value.

Noun

small potatoes pl (plural only)

  1. (idiomatic, plural, plural-only) One or more persons or things of relatively little consequence, importance, or value.
    • My paycheck is small potatoes compared to hers.
    • He no longer works for individuals, since they are small potatoes compared to his corporate clients.

Examples of small potatoes in a sentence

  • It's small potatoes for a man-o-war to be hunting poor game, like us little fore and afters."1855, Thomas Chandler Haliburton, “Unlocking a Woman's Heart”, in Nature and Human Nature, volume 1, page 38:
  • The queen may have outwitted Otto, but he’s small potatoes compared to a master opponent like the Lady of Driftmark.2022 October 16, Jenna Scherer, “An enticing House Of The Dragon crowns Westeros' new ruler”, in AV Club:

Synonyms of small potatoes

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of small potatoes

Origin of small potatoes

A specialization of a sense of potato meaning a thing of little value, and a comment on the low value of a small potato in particular, appearing in its modern form in North America in the mid-19th century (see 1855 quotation).

Questions about small potatoes

What does small potatoes mean?
Small potatoes means one or more persons or things of relatively little consequence, importance, or value.
How do you use small potatoes in a sentence?
It's small potatoes for a man-o-war to be hunting poor game, like us little fore and afters."
What part of speech is small potatoes?
Small potatoes is a noun.

Words near small potatoes in the dictionary

  1. small pica
  2. small plate
  3. small plates
  4. small pock
  5. Small Point-Adam's Cove-Blackhead-Broad Cove
  6. small potatoes
  7. small pox
  8. small press
  9. small presses
  10. small print
  11. small r republican

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: small potatoes (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.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-small potatoes.ogg.

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