Picayune

Picayune is an adjective that means petty or meaningless and a noun that refers to an insignificant person or thing. Our word of the day comes directly from French, where it refers to a 19th century copper coin. Because this coin had a fairly small value, the word picayune came to refer to something or someone who didn’t mean much. For example: I thought I was the star of our band, but didn’t realize how much of a picayune I was until we got on stage. The lead singer became the focal point and and in their eyes, I was pretty meaningless.