less
/lɛs/
Word Rarity
Common
Frequency: Zipf frequency 5.49 in modern English
4
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
3
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
adv
Used for constructing syntactic diminutive comparatives of adjectives and adverbs.
Example Sentences
- "I slept even/much less last night than I did the night before."
- "I like him less each time I see him."
- "All my cares grew less until completely gone."
- "I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed. And thus we came by a circuitous route to Mohair, the judge occupied by his own guilty thoughts, and I by others not less disturbing."
- "Randal is less welcome than Rachel but as her spouse we should invite them both."
- "This gadget is less useful than I expected."
Etymology
Adverb From Middle English les, lesse, leasse, lasse, from Old English lǣs (“smaller, less”), from Proto-Germanic *laisiz, from Proto-Indo-European *leys- (“to shrink, grow thin, be gentle”). Cognate with Old Frisian lēs (“less”), Old Saxon lēs (“less”). According to Kroonen (2013), from a northern Indo-European root Proto-Indo-European *leh₂is- or *leh₃is-, which he connects to Lithuanian liesas (“lean”). Determiner and preposition from Middle English lees, lesse, leasse, lasse, from Old English lǣssa (“less”), from Proto-Germanic *laisizan-, from Proto-Germanic *laisiz (“smaller, lesser, fewer, lower”) (see above). Cognate with Old Frisian lessa (“less”). Verb from Middle English lessen, from the determiner. Noun from Middle English lesse, from the determiner.