English · Idiom Candidate

small potatoes

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Sense 1

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Something or someone unimportant or insignificant

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Một thứ hoặc ai đó không quan trọng hoặc không đáng kể

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: small potatoes

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

Plus the fact that he was throwing his weight around with the police seemed to say Whitehall and no small potatoes, so we started with that.

Her business was very small potatoes beside his empire.

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Sense 2

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

a term of contempt. "He’s very SMALL POTATOES," he’s a nobody. Yet no one thinks of calling an important personage "large POTATOES."

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

một thuật ngữ khinh thường

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1874 (Victorian)

Where it’s used: Origin British & Irish English

Sources & notes

Historical definition reproduced from Hotten’s The Slang Dictionary (1874, public domain; Project Gutenberg #42108, retrieved 2026-07-31). Reflects the attitudes of its era.

Topics: Food Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “small potatoes” mean?

Something or someone unimportant or insignificant Literally: small potatoes

Is “small potatoes” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.