I have been saying "Non-Trivial amount of work" for several years now to imply "sizeable/large chunk of work".
I am pretty sure I learned this phrase like hundreds of other phrases from Native English speakers.
But the dictionary meaning of the word trivial is different. Is the way I am using the word Trivial correct?
I've heard the phrase used many times and have used it myself. "Non-trivial" is a funny way of saying "a lot" or "considerable" or "extreme". It's funny since it deliberately understates things, similar to how we say "not bad" when we mean "very good" ("I had that cake -- it wasn't bad") or when someone is completely drenched with rain you say "looks like you got a little wet".
My experience is as a math joke. It was common to find papers with phrases such as "...and it's trivial to prove supporting lemma X" where we'd spend 2 days trying to figure out how to prove it. As "trivial" became overused for problems which were actually difficult, saying a problem was "non-trivial" became a funny of saying "so difficult that no one could call it 'trivial'".
So it's fine to use "non-trivial" (to mean "difficult"), but only when it's appropriate to make a small joke.
upgrading the servers is an automated process but organising and scheduling it is a non-trivial task. Similarly, the cost of upgrading the component is very low, but at scale it is non-trivial half a penny per item is nothing, but we make many millions each month so it is not something to ignore.
Commented
Aug 5 at 9:41
As an addition to the good comments/answers, here's an example that may clarify the meaning of the word.
Suppose a new car engine component has been developed, and in its first two years of production five million units have been manufactured. However reports are starting to appear suggesting a problem with the component.
When the first complaint was made, we might think of that as trivial. Maybe it was a one off fault. Maybe it wasn't a fault at all, but something else happened to the car and the new component was blamed.
But then there's a second complaint. And a third. Then 5, or 10, or 30. At some point we will reach a number which is still small as compared with the millions of units manufactured. But now it is non-trivial. It is no longer unimportant, because the point has been reached where there is a real question about the general reliability of the component.
The meaning of non-trivial can just be derived from the individual words of the phrase:
not trivial : SIGNIFICANT, IMPORTANT
As @FumbleFingers said, the phrase doesn’t mean sizable or large. In fact, M+W’s first usage example includes small:
a small but nontrivial amount
We shouldn’t overthink as this isn’t an example of litotes:
the use of a negative or weak statement to emphasize a positive meaning, for example he wasn’t slow to accept the offer (= he was quick to accept the offer)
Work (especially tech work) is, as you say, frequently described as “non-trivial amount of work”, but that is not typically used to say that it is a large amount of work, unless you are trying for understated humor.
Quite frequently non-tech works have a distorted view of how much effort doing something with computers is — things that are actually easy are seen as hard, and things that are hard or impossible are seen as easy. LLM are seen as actually being close to sci-fi artificial intelligence for instance, real life Pinocchio’s or Skynet.
In short, it says if you want this work done, we’re going to need to talk about it, it’s not something trivial like asking for extra ketchup on your hotdog.
Something is trivial if it is insignificant or unimportant within the relevant context. Often, this will mean that it isn’t big either, but not necessarily.
For example, a person might have a visual impairment, say, a slight short-sightedness. If this doesn’t require correction for everyday living, it’s trivial. But, if it prevents you from pursuing your life’s ambition to be a fighter pilot, it’s not trivial.
Alternatively, consider a software fault in a motor vehicle. Let’s say it only happens once every 50 hours of operation. If it’s in the entertainment system, it’s trivial. If it’s in the braking system, it’s non-trivial.
In the context you are using, “Non-Trivial amount of work”, the context is clear that you are talking specifically about the amount of work, rather than, say, the difficulty or importance of the work. It doesn’t mean (necessarily) a large amount of work, it means enough work that it will have a negative impact on other tasks.
Yes, but finding a really good example would be a non-trivial amount of work.
It's true that "trivial" is not an exact synonym for "small", but your expression is still correct. Merriam-Webster gives the definition, "of little worth or importance." So, literally speaking, "not trivial" might mean "significant" rather than "large," but "a significant amount of work" is still what you meant.
As an aside, this is a figure of speech called litotes where you make a point by saying its opposite is false. And there can be some ambiguity. Sometimes, if you say "not small", you really just mean that it might be medium sized or large. But sometimes you mean that it's huge. Context is needed.
And non-trivial is the same.
I am going to disagree that saying a task is "non-trivial" is any kind of joke when reporting the implications of taking on such a task to management.
My experience is that saying a task is non-trivial in a commercial setting means
In other words, if you hear that a task should be considered non-trivial, inquire further before agreeing to pay for it!
As a sort-of mathematician, if I say that a question is non-trivial, I usually mean that I can't immediately give the answer, but I can probably tell you within a week if you really need to know. I intend to say that it is probably not all that hard, but on the other hand not trivially easy, and I might have to work on it a bit to know just how easy. I dont have enough insight to give the answer, but enough to know what finding the answer might involve. It sometimes happens that once the question has been asked, I suddenly find the needed insight, and say, "Oh yes, it is trivial!" It can have a range of meanings.
I think the non-technical extensions might be; "I think I can do this, but I will have to put something else aside". Alternatively, "This might seem trivial to you, but Im fairly sure it isn't"
You could approximate "trivial" with "basic", as in "not advanced / substantial".
The background is in classical (and thus later medieval) education in Europe; the seven "arts" were divided into "trivium" and "quadrivium" (the roots of the words simply indicate "the three" and "the four" out of the total of seven - "vium" means a place where roads meet, so roughly "three roads" or "three ways") where you were expected to learn the trivium first, before proceeding to the more demanding quadrivium. Thus, "trivial" in the strict sense means "belonging to the trivium".
Trivium consisted of grammar, logic, and rhetoric; quadrivium comprised arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. In other words, you need to learn to speak and reason before you move on to the more demanding applications of these skills.
