[H]is VVords vvere ranged vvith more care and leſs confidence than before, and in all his Actions he eſſay'd to beſpeak me an opinion, that the VVorld could not offer him an employment vvhich vvas not leſs important and conſiderable in his thoughts, than the pettieſt occaſion to ſerve and pleaſe me.

The pettiest creature in Heaven will be the most noble of Earth, and the most noble of Earth the pettiest in Heaven.

Later today in Finsbury Park, the cameras would spend hours panning across 35,000 festivalgoers in search of pickpockets, drunken brawlers, and other assorted agents of petty mischief.

Such literature may well be anathema to those who are too docile and petty for their own good.

That corporation is only slightly pettier than they are greedy, and they are overdue to reap the consequences.

I will give you the slightest, pettiest instance of the hindrance which the pettiest official can make out here, if so minded. […] [T]he Senior Purveyor at Balaclava refuses to cash my Cheques, for no other reason discoverable than the love of petty annoyance & the hope of injuring my credit, in the minds of ignorant servants.

But while in the beginning those political criteria [in Italian railway construction] were grandiose and national, just and even necessary, later they were to become pettier and pettier, to the point that they were almost always more regional than rational.

My cousin is so petty—I forgot his birthday and he's been making snarky comments all week.

Friends are separated for long portions of time even while they live; at last they take their leave for ever: although, I remember, when you left me in the petty form at Westminster, I soon afterwards found you in a higher remove: and this world is only the petty form of the universe; so I not only expect to pass a social hour with you here, but am in hopes of a merry meeting in a better place; […]

This finishes their education in the under school, in which they have now been three years and a half, and they are next moved into the upper, and probably at the age of ten or eleven; six or seven being the age at which boys are generally sent into the petty form.

[T]he feoffees should cause the boys to be put to some petty school to learn to read English till they attain 13, and to instruct them in some part of God's true religion.

[B]y the assistance of that truly Christian gentlewoman, the Lady Elizabeth Hastings, he increased the number of petty schools throughout the island.

[O]riginally there were six forms in the school; of these the highest was called the Sixth. Afterwards, the number of forms was increased to eight; the highest was still called the Sixth, but the Fourth form was divided into two, the Fourth and the Fourth Division, and the First into two also, the First and the Petty or Anonymous form. […] Some alterations were made, then or soon after, lower down in the school. The Fifth form was subdivided into the upper and lower Fifth; the Division into the upper and lower Division; and the Petty form was abolished.

If these houses had been built by his Lordship every one would have had his petty, at all events dividing the odour & also having a chance that some of the occupiers would clean out—but a common occupation is nobody's business, unless the owner of all the buildings takes it in hand.

Cottages occupied by Betty Hines and others; petty in a very filthy state, wants walling. Two petties belonging to Mr. James Parr to be walled, and one next Thomas Wilkinson's to be removed further off.

We have an evil in the excretal deposits, and in the ashes an antidote; but instead of applying the antidote, we keep the evil to itself, and suffer it to exercise its unmitigated power over the health of the household. […] Now the simple remedy for this would be, to construct the petties with several steps upward and backward, so as to be more over the centre of the ash-pit. […] Such an arrangement would ensure the mingling of the ashes with the excreta, by which the latter would be deodorised, and the evil suppressed.

[…] I took my seat in what was denominated, "The Idle Class", that is, at the very bottom of the school, where all those who have not received some previous instruction in Latin are placed. I however soon got out of that disgraceful and ignorant form, passed with rapidity and eclat the under and upper petty, and entered into the upper first, […]

[S]ome of them, which were the Petties and Punies of that ſchoole, whereof old Martin [Marprelate] was the maſter; though then he was but as ſome blinde and obſcure pariſh Clarke that taught in the Belfrie, not preſuming, as hee doth nowe, to preſſe into the Church, (that place in reſpect of the appurtenances being fitter for him) began but rawly with their little a, b, c.

The Free Grammar School, at Cartmel, was originally only a parochial seminary, under the superintendence of the churchwardens and sidesmen of the parish, who, for a series of years, hired a master to whom they paid the interest of a few small bequests, the remainder of his salary being made up by quarterage from the scholars, except the children of poor parents, who were taught free. In 1635, the quarterage from grammarians was sixpence, and for petties, little ones, fourpence. […] In 1674, the quarterage for grammarians was raised to 8d., but no alteration was made for the petties.

Petty

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