Small potatoes

Something is 'small potatoes' if it's small in comparison with other similar things

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Something is “small potatoes” if it’s small in comparison to others of the same type. For example, a typical movie budget might be between $50 million and $100 million. The movie “Rust” had a production budget of just $7 million. That’s small potatoes. Why? Although $7 million is a lot of money in some contexts, it’s not in comparison to a typical movie. Therefore, a movie that has a budget comparatively small is “small potatoes.”

Google recently had to settle a lawsuit with the residents of the state of California. The search giant paid $23 million–or about three times the budget of the movie “Rust.” However, this is small potatoes for such a big company. Google makes about that much profit every three hours.

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