View synonyms for

drop in the bucket

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Idioms and Phrases

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.”

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Example Sentences

Examples have not been reviewed.

“This is a tiny drop in the bucket of what is actually necessary to right-size our Fire Department in Los Angeles,” she said.

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The fund would start with $10 million, though the supervisors agreed that number was a drop in the bucket compared with the need and wanted it to be supplemented by philanthropy.

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"They may try to make an example out of a small number of the worst offenders, but this will be no more than a drop in the bucket," said Woocher.

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The amount the men are accused of stealing is just a drop in the bucket of the total that goes missing every year.

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The long-delayed measures would have been a drop in the bucket compared with the billions of dollars in estimated damage caused by the fire.

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Related Words

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

drop in someone's lap drop keel

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