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Synonyms

drop in the bucket

Idioms  

  1. A very small quantity, especially one that is too small. For example, These contributions are just a drop in the bucket; the new church wing will cost thousands more. John Wycliffe's followers used this seemingly modern phrase in their translation of the Bible (1382), and it also appears in the 1611 King James version (Isaiah 40:15): “Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance.”

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Teaching unions said they would be scrutinising the proposals closely, with one saying the money was "barely a drop in the bucket" of what was needed because of "years of underfunding".

From BBC

With more than nine in 10 people in the region living below the poverty line in 2022, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, the effort may be only a drop in the bucket.

From Barron's

But Hovhannisyan also said a “small” Danish pension fund’s holdings were a “drop in the bucket” of the $30 trillion Treasury market.

From MarketWatch

They create so much wealth and prosperity already that the energy business is a drop in the bucket.

From The Wall Street Journal

Any crypto losses would be a drop in the bucket for Harvard’s massive $57 billion endowment, the biggest of any U.S. school.

From The Wall Street Journal

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.