(びび)たる

びびたる
taru-adjective
slight; insignificant; trivial
formaldescriptive
1. slight; trivial; insignificant; negligible
Describes something extremely small in amount, degree, or importance. A literary-style prenominal adjective (連体詞) that can only appear before nouns.
微々(びび)たる金額(きんがく)だ。
It's a trivial amount of money.
努力(どりょく)成果(せいか)微々(びび)たるものだった。
The results of the effort were negligible.
It may be an insignificant difference overall, but it matters a lot to the person involved.

Common patterns

微々(びび)たる is a prenominal adjective (連体詞(れんたいし)) that only modifies nouns directly. It cannot be used predicatively (*微々(びび)たるだ is ungrammatical). The pattern ~たるもの is very common.

Common collocations

Similar words

些細(ささい)な means trivial or trifling and can be used both before nouns and predicatively. わずかな means slight or tiny and is more neutral in tone.