DROP IN THE BUCKET Definition & Meaning

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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.

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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The day’s efforts are another drop in the bucket toward the Resource Conservation District’s goal of establishing nearly 350 healthy new oaks in Topanga and Leo Carrillo state parks over the next two years — on top of their more than 450 trees already growing in the mountains.

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

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