Vocabulary in Trifles

Small, seemingly unimportant things or matters; here used ironically, as the men dismiss the women's domestic observations as trivial while those very details solve the crime.

A maker or builder of something; in the play's context, a surname meaning craftsman, though the word historically denotes one who constructs things by hand.

A length of rope, wire, or cord wound into rings or loops; in this play it refers to the knotted rope used to strangle the victim.

A rocking chair; a chair mounted on curved runners so it can swing back and forth, common in rural farmhouse settings of the early 1900s.

To make holy or sacred; used in the play in the sense of treating something with reverence or solemn respect.

A lawyer elected or appointed to represent the county government in legal proceedings; here he leads the investigation into the suspected murder.

The chief law-enforcement officer of a county, responsible for keeping order and investigating crimes within that jurisdiction.

A public official whose job is to investigate the cause of a person's death, especially when it is sudden, violent, or suspicious.

A formal legal inquiry, usually held by a coroner or jury, to determine the cause and circumstances of a death.

Strange, odd, or difficult to explain; used here in its early-twentieth-century sense of something that feels unsettling or out of the ordinary, not its modern sense.

A single baked unit of bread; referenced in the play as a domestic detail the women notice and the men dismiss as irrelevant to the investigation.

A quilting term meaning to finish a quilt by tying knots rather than stitching; used ironically in the play as a double reference to the rope used in the murder.

A thick bed covering made by stitching together layers of fabric, often in decorative patterns; the women's examination of the quilt becomes a key clue in the play.

A large piece of cut wood used as fuel; here it refers to firewood brought in for the farmhouse stove, part of the domestic chores under discussion.

A wood- or coal-burning iron appliance used for cooking and heating in a farmhouse; the state of the stove is one of the domestic details the women scrutinize.

Fruit cooked with sugar and sealed in jars for long-term storage; in the play, Mrs. Wright's worry about her jars of preserves freezing is treated as a trivial concern by the men.

Used kitchen towels left unclean; the county attorney points to them as evidence of poor housekeeping, while the women defend Mrs. Wright's domestic circumstances.

A small yellow songbird often kept as a pet; in the play the dead canary is a crucial piece of evidence suggesting motive, as it was the one source of joy in Mrs. Wright's isolated life.