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Little vs Somewhat - What's the difference?

little | somewhat |

As a proper noun little

is .

As an adverb somewhat is

to a limited extent or degree.

As a pronoun somewhat is

(archaic) something.

As a noun somewhat is

more or less; a certain quantity or degree; a part, more or less; something.

little

English

(wikipedia little)

Adjective

  • Small in size.
  • Insignificant, trivial.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-21, author= Chico Harlan
  • , volume=189, issue=2, page=30, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly) , title= 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."}}
  • 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]:
  • 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.
  • * 2004 , Barry Miles, Zappa: A Biography , 2005 edition, ISBN 080214215X, page 5:
  • 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.
  • Small in amount or number, having few members.
  • Short in duration; brief.
  • a little sleep
  • Small in extent of views or sympathies; narrow; shallow; contracted; mean; illiberal; ungenerous.
  • * Tennyson
  • 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) big

    Adverb

  • 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= 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

    * much

    Determiner

  • Not much, only a little: only a small amount (of).
  • 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) much

    somewhat

    English

    Alternative forms

    * (qualifier) summat (and variants listed there)

    Adverb

    (-)
  • To a limited extent or degree.
  • *
  • , title=(The Celebrity), chapter=2 , passage=I had occasion […] to make a somewhat long business trip to Chicago, and on my return […] I found Farrar awaiting me in the railway station. He smiled his wonted fraction by way of greeting, […], and finally leading me to his buggy, turned and drove out of town. I was completely mystified at such an unusual proceeding.}}

    See also

    * slightly

    Pronoun

    (English Pronouns)
  • (archaic) Something.
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.12:
  • Proceeding to the midst he stil did stand, / As if in minde he somewhat had to say […].
  • * Robert Trail
  • But this text and theme I am upon, relates to somewhat far higher and greater, than all the beholdings of his glory that ever any saint on earth received.
  • * 1851 , Herman Melville, Moby-Dick
  • Not seldom in this life, when, on the right side, fortune's favourites sail close by us, we, though all adroop before, catch somewhat of the rushing breeze, and joyfully feel our bagging sails fill out.

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • More or less; a certain quantity or degree; a part, more or less; something.
  • * Grew
  • These salts have somewhat of a nitrous taste.
  • * Dryden
  • Somewhat of his good sense will suffer, in this transfusion, and much of the beauty of his thoughts will be lost.
  • A person or thing of importance; a somebody.
  • * Tennyson
  • Here come those that worship me. / They think that I am somewhat .