negligible

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A negligible amount or difference means that it's extremely small and doesn't make much of a difference.

You often hear "negligible" when people are talking about amounts of money, time, or effort. For example, if you're planning to spend some cash on a new phone and someone says the extra features are only slightly better than last year's model, they might say the difference is negligible – it's not worth getting too excited about. You can also hear "negligible" in conversations about health risks or environmental impacts: if a small change in your diet won't make much of an impact on your overall well-being, that change is considered negligible.

How common is "negligible"?

Word negligible is considered rare in modern English.
It appears most frequently in academic texts and less often in other writings.
Definitions

adjective

  • Able to be neglected, ignored or excluded from consideration; too small or unimportant to be of concern.

    Example: We found errors, but their effects were negligible.

ignorableneglectableslighttrivialconsiderableimportantsignificantinnegligibleunignorable

Real examples of "negligible" in context

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