less
pronunciation
How to pronounce less in British English:
UK [les]
How to pronounce less in American English:
US [les]
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- Adjective:
- (comparative of `little' usually used with mass nouns) a quantifier meaning not as great in amount or degree
- (usually preceded by `no') lower in quality
- (usually preceded by `no') lower in esteem
- (nonstandard in some uses but often idiomatic with measure phrases) fewer
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- Adverb:
- used to form the comparative of some adjectives and adverbs
- comparative of little
Word Origin
- less
- less: [OE] In origin, less is a comparative form. It goes back ultimately to Indo-European *loiso- ‘small’, which in prehistoric Germanic had the comparative suffix added to it to produce *laisiz – whence English less. It is not found in any of the other modern Germanic languages.=> least
- less
- Old English læs (adv.), læssa (adj.), comparative of læs "small;" from Proto-Germanic *lais-izo "smaller" (cognates: Old Saxon, Old Frisian les "less;" Middle Dutch lise "soft, gentle," German leise "soft"), from PIE root *leis- (2) "small" (cognates: Lithuanian liesas "thin"). Formerly also "younger," as a translation of Latin minor, a sense now obsolete except in James the Less. Used as a comparative of little, but not related to it. The noun is Old English læsse.
Antonym
Example
- 1. The long-term risks for men are less proven .
- 2. Could we manage with less ?
- 3. This in turn meant that they recapitalised less .
- 4. Yet there 's less here than meets the eye .
- 5. Most africans live on less than two dollars a day .