In honour of whose birth these triumphs are,
Sits here, like beauty’s child.
Pericles, Prince of Tyre, act ii. sc. 2.
You cannot have a perfect palace except you have two several sides, the one for feasts and triumphs, the other for dwelling.—Bacon, Essays, 45.
This day to Dagon is a solemn feast,
With sacrifices, triumph, pomp, and games.
Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1311.
Trivial. A ‘trivial’ saying is at present a slight one; it was formerly an often-repeated one, or one containing an elementary truth; it might be trite, on the ground of the weight and wisdom which it contained; as certainly the maxim quoted by Hacket is anything but ‘trivial’ in our sense of the word. Gradually the notion of slightness was superadded to that of commonness, and thus an epithet once of honour has become one of dishonour rather. See Mayhew-Skeat, Dict. of Middle English (s. v. ‘Trivials’).
Others avouch, and that more truly, that he [Duns Scotus] was born in Downe, and thereof they guess him to be named Dunensis, and by contraction Duns, which term is so trivial and common in schools, that whoso surpasseth others either in cavilling sophistry or subtle philosophy is forthwith nicknamed a Duns.—Stanyhurst, Description of Ireland, p. 2.
Æquitas optimo cuique notissima, is a trivial saying, A very good man cannot be ignorant of equity.—Hacket, Life of Archbishop Williams, part i. p. 57.