Precious vs Extravagant - What's the difference?
precious | extravagant |
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)
Exceeding the bounds of something; roving; hence, foreign.
* (William Shakespeare)
Extreme; wild; excessive; unrestrained.
* Addison
*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham)
, title=(The China Governess), chapter=1 Exorbitant.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-08, volume=407, issue=8839, page=55, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Profuse in expenditure; prodigal; wasteful.
As adjectives the difference between precious and extravagant
is that precious is of high value or worth, or seemingly regarded as such while extravagant is exceeding the bounds of something; roving; hence, foreign.As a noun precious
is someone (or something) who is loved; a darling.As an adverb precious
is Used as an intensifier.As a proper noun Precious
is {{surname|from=nicknames|lang=en}}, originating as a male or female nickname.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.
External links
* (wikipedia "precious")extravagant
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- The extravagant and erring spirit hies / To his confine.
- There appears something nobly wild and extravagant in great natural geniuses.
citation, passage=The half-dozen pieces […] were painted white and carved with festoons of flowers, birds and cupids. […] The bed was the most extravagant piece. Its graceful cane halftester rose high towards the cornice and was so festooned in carved white wood that the effect was positively insecure, as if the great couch were trimmed with icing sugar.}}
Obama goes troll-hunting, passage=According to this saga of intellectual-property misanthropy, these creatures [patent trolls] roam the business world, buying up patents and then using them to demand extravagant payouts from companies they accuse of infringing them. Often, their victims pay up rather than face the costs of a legal battle.}}
- (Bancroft)
