What's the difference between
and
Enter two words to compare and contrast their definitions, origins, and synonyms to better understand how those words are related.

An vs Onto - What's the difference?

an | onto |

As nouns the difference between an and onto

is that an is favor, grace while onto is grease.

As an adjective onto is

oily, greasy.

an

English

(wikipedia an)

Etymology 1

From (etyl) .

Article

(head)
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=2 , passage=Sunning himself on the board steps, I saw for the first time Mr. Farquhar Fenelon Cooke. He was dressed out in broad gaiters and bright tweeds, like an English tourist, and his face might have belonged to Dagon, idol of the Philistines.}}
  • (UK, non-standard) used in many British regional accents before some words beginning with a pronounced h
  • Usage notes
    * The article (an) is used before vowel sounds and (optionally) before silent aitches, and (a) before consonant sounds. * The various article senses of (a), all are senses of (term).

    Etymology 2

    From (etyl) an

    Conjunction

    (English Conjunctions)
  • (archaic) If, so long as.
  • An it please you, my lord.
  • (archaic) as if; as though.
  • Samuel Taylor Coleridge , The Rime of the Ancyent Marinere (Original Version of 1797) 61-64:
    At length did cross an Albatross, Thorough the Fog it came; And an it were a Christian Soul, We hail'd it in God's Name.

    Etymology 3

    .

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • The first letter of the Georgian alphabet, (Nuskhuri).
  • Etymology 4

    From the (etyl) preposition an/on.

    Preposition

    (English prepositions)
  • In each; to or for each; per.
  • I was only going twenty miles an hour.
    Usage notes
    * This is the same as the word a'' in such contexts, modified because of preceding an unpronounced ''h''. ''The train was speeding along at a mile a minute.
    Synonyms
    * per

    References

    *

    Statistics

    *

    onto

    English

    Alternative forms

    * on to

    Preposition

    (English prepositions)
  • Upon; on top of.
  • *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Engineers of a different kind , passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}
  • (informal) Aware of.
  • (mathematics) Being an onto function with a codomain of (see below).
  • Adjective

    (-)
  • (mathematics, of a function) Assuming each of the values in its codomain; having its range equal to its codomain.
  • Considered as a function on the real numbers, the exponential function is not onto .

    Synonyms

    * (mathematics) surjective

    See also

    * (mathematics) one-to-one, injective, bijective

    Anagrams

    *