While vs However - What's the difference?
while | however |
An uncertain duration of time, a period of time.
During the same time that.
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, title= * 1948 , , North from Mexico / The Spanish-Speaking People of The United States , J. B. Lippincott Company, page 25,
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, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= Although.
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(Northern England, Scotland) Until.
* Beaumont and Fletcher
As long as.
* I. Watts
To pass (time) idly.
* Longfellow
To loiter.
(lb) Nevertheless, nonetheless, even so, that said, in spite of this.
:
*
*:Thus, when he drew up instructions in lawyer language, he expressed the important words by an initial, a medial, or a final consonant, and made scratches for all the words between; his clerks, however , understood him very well.
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, title= (lb) To whatever degree.
:
(lb) In whatever way.
:
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=(Oliver Burkeman)
, volume=189, issue=2, page=48, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= In what way?; how?
:
In whatever manner (that).
To whatever extent.
(proscribed) Although, though, but, yet.
As conjunctions the difference between however and while
is that however is in whatever manner (that) while while is during the same time that.As an adverb however
is nevertheless, nonetheless, even so, that said, in spite of this.As a noun while is
an uncertain duration of time, a period of time.As a verb while is
to pass (time) idly.while
English
Noun
(en noun)- He lectured for quite a long while .
Conjunction
(wikipedia while) (English Conjunctions)Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=While the powwow was going on the big woman came back again. She was consider'ble rumpled and scratched up, but there was fire in her eye.}}
- While De Anza was exploring the Bay of San Francisco, seeking a site for the presidio, the American colonists on the eastern seaboard, three thousand miles away, were celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Fantasy of navigation, passage=Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.}}
London Is Special, but Not That Special," New York Times (retrieved 28 September 2013):
- While Britain’s recession has been deep and unforgiving, in London it has been relatively shallow.
- I may be conveyed into your chamber; I'll lie under your bed while midnight.
- Use your memory; you will sensibly experience a gradual improvement, while you take care not to overload it.
Verb
(whil)- The lovely lady whiled the hours away.
- (Spectator)
Derived terms
* while away * meanwhile * the whilehowever
English
(POS mixed up)Adverb
(-)The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=That the young Mr. Churchills liked—but they did not like him coming round of an evening and drinking weak whisky-and-water while he held forth on railway debentures and corporation loans. Mr. Barrett, however , by fawning and flattery, seemed to be able to make not only Mrs. Churchill but everyone else do what he desired.}}
A punch in the gut, passage=Mostly, the microbiome is beneficial. It helps with digestion and enables people to extract a lot more calories from their food than would otherwise be possible. Research over the past few years, however , has implicated it in diseases from atherosclerosis to asthma to autism.}}
The tao of tech, passage=But the real way to build a successful online business is to be better than your rivals at undermining people's control of their own attention. Partly, this is a result of how online advertising has traditionally worked: advertisers pay for clicks, and a click is a click, however it's obtained.}}
Usage notes
* (nevertheless) Strunk and White’s (The Elements of Style)'' argues that the adverb ''however , in its sense of nevertheless, should be avoided at the beginning of a sentence.Synonyms
* after all * but * nevertheless * nonetheless * notwithstanding * though * that said * still and allConjunction
(English Conjunctions)- Do it however you want.
- However far he may get, there'll be many that get further.
- However much you prepare for the exam, there will still be a few questions on which you won't be sure of the answer.
Usage notes
*(although) The use of however'' as a conjunction meaning "but" is identical to its use as a clause-initial adverb meaning "nevertheless", except in punctuation (when written) and in prosody (when spoken). Hence, the following proscribed sentence:
(proscribed) ''He told me not to do it, however''' I did it.''
is equivalent to the following accepted one:
(accepted) ''He told me not to do it; '''however , I did it.''
In particular, when used as a conjunction in this sense, ''however always appears between the clauses it connects; it does not introduce a true subordinate clause that can be moved to the start of an independent clause, because a conjunctive adverb cannot do that.
Statistics
*References
* * * * "however (degree)" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007) * "
however (despite)" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007) * "
however (way)" in Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary (Cambridge University Press, 2007) * * Oxford English Dictionary , second edition (1989) * Random House Webster's Unabridged Electronic Dictionary (1987-1996)