Abundance vs Precious - What's the difference?
abundance | precious |
A large quantity; many.
An overflowing fullness or ample sufficiency; profusion; copious supply; superfluity; plentifulness.
* (rfdate) (Sir Walter Raleigh)
Wealth; affluence; plentiful amount of resources.
Frequency, amount, ratio of something within a given environment or sample.
(card games) A bid to take nine or more tricks in solo whist.
Of high value or worth, or seemingly regarded as such.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-08-16, author=(Polly Toynbee)
, volume=189, issue=10, page=21, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= Regarded with love or tenderness.
(pejorative) Treated with too much reverence.
(pejorative) Contrived to be cute or charming.
* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 24, author=Nathan Rabin, work=The Onion AV Club
, title= Someone (or something) who is loved; a darling.
* J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
* 1909 , Mrs. Teignmouth Shore, The Pride of the Graftons (page 57)
abundance
English
(wikipedia abundance)Alternative forms
* (obsolete) abundaunce * (obsolete) habundance * (obsolete) boundance * (card games) abondanceNoun
(en noun)- It is lamentable to remember what abundance of noble blood hath been shed with small benefit to the Christian state.
Usage notes
* Synonym notes: Abundance , Plenty]], [[exuberance, Exuberance. These words rise upon each other in expressing the idea of fullness. ** Plenty'' denotes a sufficiency to supply every want; as, ''plenty'' of food, ''plenty of money, etc. ** Abundance'' express more, and gives the idea of superfluity or excess; as, ''abundance'' of riches, an ''abundance of wit and humor; often, however, it only denotes plenty in a high degree. ** Exuberance'' rises still higher, and implies a bursting forth on every side, producing great superfluity or redundance; as, an ''exuberance'' of mirth, an ''exuberance of animal spirits, etc.Synonyms
* exuberance, plenteousness, plenty, copiousness, overflow, riches, affluence, wealthReferences
precious
English
Alternative forms
* pretious (obsolete)Adjective
(en adjective)Britain's booming birthrate, passage=People are a good thing, the most precious resource in a rich economy, so the progressive-minded feel. Only misanthropists disagree or the dottier Malthusians who send green-ink tweets deploring any state assistance for child-rearing.}}
Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3, passage=In the abstract, Stuhlbarg’s twinkly-eyed sidekick suggests Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2 by way of late-period Robin Williams with an alien twist, but Stuhlbarg makes a character that easily could have come across as precious into a surprisingly palatable, even charming man.}}
Synonyms
* (of high value) dear, valuable * (contrived to charm) saccharine, syrupy, tweeNoun
(es)- “It isn't fair, my precious , is it, to ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?”
- She sat down with the dogs in her lap. "I won't neglect you for any one, will I, my preciouses ?"
Adverb
(-)- There is precious little we can do.