Word.ws English Dictionary

small wonder

small wonder noun: an event or fact whose cause or rationale is not difficult to discern; an unsurprising occurrence.

Noun

small wonder (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) An event or fact whose cause or rationale is not difficult to discern; an unsurprising occurrence.
    • Small wonder if he had loved her for herself, she was so beautiful.1891, F. Marion Crawford, chapter 24, in The Witch of Prague
    • Small wonder that I am restless. I think, and think, and I cannot cease from thinking.1908 February 19, Jack London, chapter 1, in The Iron Heel, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., →OCLC

Adverb

small wonder (uncountable)

  1. (idiomatic) No surprise; unsurprising that.
    • I soon discovered that Smith was heels over head in love with Kate Stevens, shot through the heart as Mercutio would say, with a fair girl's blue eye!
      And small wonder, for Kate was lovely; a little above middle height with slight, rounded figure and most attractive face1922, Frank Harris, “X”, in My Life and Loves

Examples of small wonder in a sentence

  • Small wonder that you can't believe my words—you who think yourself sage enough to reject the opinions of your parents and superiors.1910, Rabindranath Tagore, The King of the Dark Chamber, Scene 1:
  • That she was beautiful and intelligent could not be denied, and so it was small wonder that she might appeal strongly to any man.1929, Edgar Rice Burroughs, chapter 2, in Monster Men:
  • Small wonder the average cost of new pools has leaped past $30,000.2004 August 16, Jeremy Caplan, “What's Cool In the Pool”, in Time:
  • In retrospect, it was small wonder that Railtrack found its finances under pressure, as with ever increasing demand there was an inevitable effect on infrastructure renewals.2024 January 10, 'Industry Insider', “Success built on liberalisation and market freedom”, in RAIL, number 1000, page 69:

Forms of small wonder

alternative formlittle wonder
alternative formno wonder
alternative formtiny wonder

Questions about small wonder

What does small wonder mean?
Small wonder means an event or fact whose cause or rationale is not difficult to discern; an unsurprising occurrence.
How do you use small wonder in a sentence?
Small wonder that you can't believe my words—you who think yourself sage enough to reject the opinions of your parents and superiors.
What part of speech is small wonder?
Small wonder can be a noun or an adverb.

Words near small wonder in the dictionary

  1. small ubiquitin-related modifier
  2. small ubiquitin-related modifiers
  3. small unmarked bills
  4. small white
  5. small whites
  6. small wonder
  7. small words
  8. small world
  9. Small Yard, High Fence
  10. small, unmarked bills
  11. small-billed tinamou

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: small wonder (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 wonder.ogg.

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