paltry

Paltry comes from Middle Low German paltrig, meaning 'ragged, rubbishy, worthless,' itself from palter or palte, 'cloth, rag, shred.' That traces back through Old Saxon *paltro/*palto to Proto-Germanic *paltrô, *paltô, 'scrap, rag, patch' — its ultimate root remains uncertain, though it may connect to a Proto-Indo-European word for cloth.

The word began as a description of literal rags and tattered cloth, and its sense of raggedness widened into a general judgment of anything shabby or worthless.

It's cognate with a whole family of Germanic 'rag' words — Low German palte, West Frisian palt, and Swedish palta all carry the same 'scrap of cloth' meaning, showing how widespread this rag-root is across northern Europe.