small timeadj.n.

1909 Trenton (New Jersey) Evening Times 1 Mar. 14/2 It is likely that the United Booking office will take the same stand..which will confine these small time acts exclusively to the small time theaters.

1910 Variety 30 Apr. 9/4 The Hartford Opera House has been taken under a five-year lease by S. Z. Poli who will operate it as a ‘small time’ vaudeville house.

1921 A. G. Empey Madonna of Hills iii. 24 She had been given a ‘tryout’ before a booking agency, and had made good to the extent of working in ‘small time’ vaudeville.

1944 Billboard 1 Jan. 19/4 They have created a hot iced-borscht circuit where name, semi-name, and small-time acts now can lap up plenty of cream.

1956 Life 15 Oct. 112/2 I grew up trouping with carnival minstrel shows and in small time vaudeville.

2010 M. Whalan Amer. Culture in 1910s i. 54 Small-time vaudeville..developed an alternative to the Keith circuit's more white-collar, higher-price vaudeville.

1915 Weekly Drug Markets 10 Feb. 7/1 It is not the large manufacturers particularly that worry the brokers and jobbers... It is the ‘small time’ manufacturers, who in the privacy and obscurity of a back room put up talcum powder made of the best flour and powdered sugar.

1934 Punch 7 Mar. 280/2 He lumbered, mined and starved in Canada; he became an itinerant ‘small-time’ wrestler and pugilist all over the United States.

1938 P. G. Wodehouse Code of Woosters xiii. 278 Sidney Carton..was small-time stuff compared with you, Bertie.

1949 ‘J. Tey’ Brat Farrar xv. 139 Timber..was a deliberate and intelligent rogue... There was nothing small-time about Timber.

1976 P. R. White Planning for Public Transport x. 204 Many economists expert in the finer points of judging small-time savings..have only the haziest idea of costs.

2003 Sci Fi Oct. 77/1 It's a revealing look at how a small-time mobster gets treated like royalty.

1910 R. Grau Business Man in Amusement World vi. 95 Joe Wood..was the pioneer of what is known to fame and in theatrical parlance as ‘the small time’.

1910 Variety 30 Apr. 9/4 Acts on the ‘small time’ of any merit or quality will not play in the houses calling for ‘five shows daily’.

1917 P. G. Wodehouse Man with Two Left Feet 38 He's booked me in the small time at thirty-five dollars a week.

1955 Billboard 1 Jan. 47/4 Dillon then got into vaude, playing the small time.

1960 B. Keaton My Wonderful World of Slapstick v. 88 Rather than play the small time, other big-time acts preferred not to work.

1983 M. Berle in N.Y. Mag. 14 Feb. 55/2 You had to play the small time, break in your act, get it so tight..that it was surefire—and then you could play the Palace.

2008 E. Mordden Ziegfeld iii. 40 Yes, they're such obvious rules—but then, why were so many managers in the Small Time for life?

1926 N.Y. Times 24 Nov. 21/2 The imagination staggers at the thought of the furore this troupe [of big-league baseball players] will arouse in the small time.

1959 S. Plath Jrnl. 13 Oct. (2000) 518 I can't reconcile myself to the smalltime.

1977 B. Langley Death Stalk ix. 103 Small-time hoodlums looked very much alike. Perhaps it was that streak..of uniformity which kept them in the small-time.

1991 L. Sante Low Life iii. ii. 249 In the small time, graft came in two classes, clean and dirty.

2000 Sportsboat & Waterski Internat. No. 5. 34/1 After London, the National Boat, Caravan and Leisure Show many seem like small-time to some.

1910 Variety 30 Apr. 9/4 S. Z. Poli..will operate it as a ‘small time’ vaudeville house, under the booking direction of J. J. Clancy, and in conjunction with the other Poli ‘small timers’.

1914 Green Bk. Mag. July 115/1 Oh, we were only small-timers, but the agents were on to Bob.

1935 A. J. Pollock Underworld Speaks 109/1 Small timer, a person who doesn't amount to much; a piker.

1950 Sport 24 Mar. 21/4 The small-timer is now not only demanding protection from the Guild but a rightful place in boxing affairs.

1959 ‘R. Simons’ Houseboat Killings viii. 90 She was a small timer when I met 'er... Then she got so 'igh and mighty she wouldn't speak to me.

1976 ‘Trevanian’ Main (1977) x. 189 A couple of small~timers..who make their money by ‘laundering’ men for the American organized-crime market.

2002 R. Porter Blood & Guts ii. 46 Most charlatans were small-timers, but some made big killings.