987,672,399 visitors served.
987,672,399 visitors served. |
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small beer |
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small beer (British, American & Australian, informal, American & Australian, informal) something that is not important, especially when compared to something else. A loan of that size is small beer - these banks are lending millions of pounds a day. And we are not talking small potatoes - building the airport means many people in the area will lose their homes. |
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? References in classic literature |
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Defuncti injuria ne afficiantur was a law of the twelve tables, and De mortuis nil nisi bonum is an excellent injunction -- even if the dead in question be nothing but dead small beer. "First, that on the above-mentioned Feast of the Assumption, small beer having been served to the novices in the proportion of one quart to each four, the said brother John did drain the pot at one draught to the detriment of brother Paul, brother Porphyry and brother Ambrose, who could scarce eat their none-meat of salted stock-fish on account of their exceeding dryness," He resumed this occupation when he was replete with beef, had sucked up all the gravy in the baking-dish with the flat of his knife, and had drawn liberally on a barrel of small beer in the scullery. |
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small beer
