Little vs Fine - What's the difference?
little | fine | Related terms |
Small in size.
Insignificant, trivial.
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author=
, volume=189, issue=2, page=30, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= Very young.
(of a sibling) Younger.
* 1871 October 18, The One-eyed Philosopher [pseudonym], "Street Corners", in Judy: or the London serio-comic journal , volume 9, page 255 [http://books.google.com/books?id=_B4oAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA255]:
* 2004 , Barry Miles, Zappa: A Biography , 2005 edition, ISBN 080214215X, page 5:
Small in amount or number, having few members.
Short in duration; brief.
Small in extent of views or sympathies; narrow; shallow; contracted; mean; illiberal; ungenerous.
* Tennyson
Not much.
:
*
*:Little disappointed, then, she turned attention to "Chat of the Social World," gossip which exercised potent fascination upon the girl's intelligence. She devoured with more avidity than she had her food those pretentiously phrased chronicles of the snobocracy […] distilling therefrom an acid envy that robbed her napoleon of all its savour.
Not at all.
:
*
*:But then I had the [massive] flintlock by me for protection. ¶, and a 'bead' could be drawn upon Molly, the dairymaid, kissing the fogger behind the hedge, little dreaming that the deadly tube was levelled at them.
*{{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 13, author=Alistair Magowan, work=BBC Sport
, title= Not much, only a little: only a small amount (of).
(lb) Of subjective quality.
#Of superior quality.
#:
#*
#*:"A fine man, that Dunwody, yonder," commented the young captain, as they parted, and as he turned to his prisoner. "We'll see him on in Washington some day. He is strengthening his forces now against Mr. Benton out there.."
#(lb) Being acceptable, adequate, passable, or satisfactory.
#:
#*
, title=(The Celebrity), chapter=3
, passage=Now all this was very fine , but not at all in keeping with the Celebrity's character as I had come to conceive it. The idea that adulation ever cloyed on him was ludicrous in itself. In fact I thought the whole story fishy, and came very near to saying so.}}
#(lb) Good-looking, attractive.
#:
#*, chapter=10
, title= #Subtle, delicately balanced.
#*The Independent
#*:The fine distinction between lender of last resort and a bail-out
#(lb) Showy; overdecorated.
#*(Matthew Arnold) (1822-1888)
#*:He gratified them with occasionalfine writing.
#Delicate; subtle; exquisite; artful; dexterous.
#*(Alexander Pope) (1688-1744)
#*:The spider's touch, how exquisitely fine !
#*(John Dryden) (1631-1700)
#*:The nicest and most delicate touches of satire consist in fine raillery.
#*(Thomas Gray) (1716-1771)
#*:He has as fine a hand at picking a pocket as a woman.
(lb) Of objective quality.
#Of a particular grade of quality, usually between very good'' and ''very fine'', and below ''mint .
#:
#(lb) Sunny and not raining.
#*, chapter=23
, title= #Consisting of especially minute particulate; made up of particularly small pieces.
#:
#Particularly slender; especially thin, narrow, or of small girth.
#:
#Made of slender or thin filaments.
#:
#Having a (specified) proportion of pure metal in its composition.
#:
(lb) Behind the batsman and at a small angle to the line between the wickets.
:
(lb) Subtle; thin; tenuous.
*(Francis Bacon) (1561-1626)
*:The eye standeth in the finer medium and the object in the grosser.
expression of agreement
well, nicely, in a positive way
Fine champagne; French brandy.
* 1926 , Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises , Scribner 2003, p. 14:
* 1936 , Djuna Barnes, Nightwood , Faber & Faber 2007, p. 18:
(usually, in the plural) something that is fine; fine particles
* They filtered silt and fines out of the soil.
to make finer, purer, or cleaner; to purify or clarify.
* Hobbes
to become finer, purer, or cleaner.
To make finer, or less coarse, as in bulk, texture, etc.
To change by fine gradations.
* Browning
to clarify (wine and beer) by filtration.
A fee levied as punishment for breaking the law.
* The fine for jay-walking has gone from two dollars to thirty in the last fifteen years.
* {{quote-book, year=2006, author=
, title=Internal Combustion
, chapter=2 To issue a fine as punishment to (someone).
* She was fined a thousand dollars for littering, but she appealed.
To pay a fine.
* Hallam
(music) The end of a musical composition.
(music) The location in a musical score that indicates the end of the piece, particularly when the piece ends somewhere in the middle of the score due to a section of the music being repeated.
(obsolete) To finish; to cease.
(obsolete) To cause to cease; to stop.
(obsolete) End; conclusion; termination; extinction.
* Spenser
* Shakespeare
A final agreement concerning lands or rents between persons, as the lord and his vassal.
(UK, legal) A sum of money or price paid for obtaining a benefit, favor, or privilege, as for admission to a copyhold, or for obtaining or renewing a lease.
(Webster 1913)
Little is a related term of fine.
As a proper noun little
is .As a verb fine is
.little
English
(wikipedia little)Adjective
Chico Harlan
Japan pockets the subsidy …, passage=Across Japan, technology companies and private investors are racing to install devices that until recently they had little interest in: solar panels. Massive solar parks are popping up as part of a rapid build-up that one developer likened to an "explosion."}}
- If you want to find Little' France, take any turning on the north side of Leicester square, and wander in a zigzag fashion Oxford Streetwards. The ' Little is rather smokier and more squalid than the Great France upon the other side of the Manche.
- In the forties, hurdy-gurdy men could still be heard in all those East Coast cities with strong Italian neighbourhoods: New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Boston. A visit to Baltimore's Little Italy at that time was like a trip to Italy itself.
- a little sleep
- The long-necked geese of the world that are ever hissing dispraise, / Because their natures are little .
Usage notes
Some authorities regard both littler' and '''littlest''' as non-standard. The OED says of the word little: "''the adjective has no recognized mode of comparison. The difficulty is commonly evaded by resort to a synonym (as smaller, smallest); some writers have ventured to employ the unrecognized forms littler, littlest, which are otherwise confined to dialect or imitations of childish or illiterate speech.''" The forms '''lesser''' and ' least are encountered in animal names such as lesser flamingo and least weasel.Antonyms
* (small) large, big * (young) big * (younger) bigAdverb
Sunderland 0-1 Man Utd, passage=But as United saw the game out, little did they know that, having looked likely to win their 13th Premier League title, it was City who turned the table to snatch glory from their arch-rivals' grasp.}}
Antonyms
* muchDeterminer
- There is little water left.
- We had very little to do.
Usage notes
* is used with uncountable nouns, few with plural countable nouns.Antonyms
* (not much) muchfine
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) fin, from (etyl) .Adjective
(er)The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=It was a joy to snatch some brief respite, and find himself in the rectory drawing–room. Listening here was as pleasant as talking; just to watch was pleasant. The young priests who lived here wore cassocks and birettas; their faces were fine and mild, yet really strong, like the rector's face; and in their intercourse with him and his wife they seemed to be brothers.}}
The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=If the afternoon was fine they strolled together in the park, very slowly, and with pauses to draw breath wherever the ground sloped upward. The slightest effort made the patient cough.}}
Synonyms
* (of superior quality) good, excellent * (informal) (being acceptable, adequate, passable, or satisfactory ): all right, ok, , okay, hunky-dory, kosher * (made up of particularly small pieces) fine-grained, powdered, powdery, pulverised, pulverized, small-grained * (made of slender or thin filaments) fine-threadedAntonyms
* (made up of particularly small pieces) coarse * (made of slender or thin filaments) coarseAdverb
(en adverb)- Everything worked out fine.
Synonyms
* (expression of agreement) all right, alright, OK, very wellNoun
(en noun)- We had dined at l'Avenue's, and afterward went to the Café de Versailles for coffee. We had several fines after the coffee, and I said I must be going.
- He refilled his glass. ‘The fine is very good,’ he said.
Usage notes
Particularly used in plural as fines of ground coffee beans in espresso making.See also
* filingVerb
(fin)- to fine gold
- It hath been fined and refined by learned men.
- to fine the soil
- to fine down a ship's lines, i.e. to diminish her lines gradually
- I often sate at home / On evenings, watching how they fined themselves / With gradual conscience to a perfect night.
Synonyms
* (to make or become finer, purer, or cleaner ): clarify, refine, purifyDerived terms
* chance'd be a fine thing * cut it fine * fine art * fine as frog hair * fine feathers make fine birds * fine-grained * fine leg * fine line * finely * fineness * fine print * fine-structure constant * fine-tooth comb * fine-tune * fine words butter no parsnips * * just fine * to a fine fare-thee-wellEtymology 2
(etyl)Noun
(en noun)citation, passage=The popular late Middle Ages fictional character Robin Hood, dressed in green to symbolize the forest, dodged fines for forest offenses and stole from the rich to give to the poor. But his appeal was painfully real and embodied the struggle over wood.}}
Synonyms
* amercementVerb
- Men fined' for the king's good will; or that he would remit his anger; women ' fined for leave to marry.
Synonyms
* amerceEtymology 3
From (etyl) ("end").Noun
(en noun)Usage notes
This word is virtually never used in speech and therefore essentially confined to musical notation.Derived terms
* da capo al fine=Etymology 4
(etyl) finer, (etyl) finir. See (finish) (transitive verb).Verb
(fin)Noun
(en noun)- to see their fatal fine
- Is this the fine of his fines?
- (Spelman)