small beer

A tiny, trifling, and/or inconsequential person, thing, or amount (of something). Primarily heard in UK. To most people, £2,000 is a lot to spend on anything, but it's small beer to the country's mega rich. I've been trying to raise my concerns about the project, but I'm small beer to the company's upper management.

See also: beer, small

small beer

Also, small potatoes. Of little importance, as in Don't listen to Henry; he's small beer, or It's silly to worry about that bill; it's small potatoes. The first term alludes to a beer of low alcoholic content (also called light beer today) and was used metaphorically by Shakespeare in several plays. The variant may have been invented by frontiersman Davy Crockett; it was first recorded in 1836. Also see small fry, def. 2.

See also: beer, small

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

small beer

BRITISH

COMMON If something is small beer, it is unimportant compared with another thing. The five million pound subsidy is, however, small beer compared to the amounts that European governments give their film industries. The present series of royal scandals makes the 1936 abdication look like pretty small beer. Note: `Small beer' originally meant weak beer.

See also: beer, small

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

small beer

something trivial or insignificant. chiefly British

Originally, small beer meant literally ‘weak beer’.

2005 Observer Music Monthly Getting called a ‘Paki’ by ill-informed racists was very small beer compared to being shot at by Sinhalese government forces chasing her father.

See also: beer, small

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

small ˈbeer

(British English) (American English small poˈtatoes) something that has little importance or value: Jacob earns about $40 000, but that’s small beer compared with his brother’s salary.

See also: beer, small

small beer

n. nothing or next to nothing; an insignificant person. (From a very old word for weak or inferior beer.) Small beer or not, he’s my customer, and I will see that he is taken care of.

See also: beer, small

small beer/small potatoes

Something trivial or unimportant. Literally, “small beer” is the British name for beer of low alcohol content, today more often called “light beer.” As a metaphor it was already being used in Shakespeare’s time, and Shakespeare himself used it in several plays (Henry IV, Part 2; Othello). It is heard more in Britain than in America, where small potatoes, likening a poor crop to something of little worth or importance, dates from the early nineteenth century. David Crockett used it in Exploits and Adventures in Texas (1836): “This is what I call small potatoes and few of a hill.” More picturesquely, D. G. Paige wrote, “Political foes are such very small potatoes that they will hardly pay for skinning” (Dow’s Patent Sermons, ca. 1849).