Precious vs Important - What's the difference?
precious | important |
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)
Having relevant and crucial value.
:
*
*: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.
*{{quote-book, year=1963, author=(Margery Allingham), title=(The China Governess)
, chapter=20 *1988, (Robert Ferro), Second Son :
*:For this was the most important thing, that when a person felt strongly about an issue in life, it mustn’t be ignored by others; for if it was, everything subsequent to it would turn out badly, even though there should seem to be no direct connection.
*{{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=May-June, author=
, title=
As adjectives the difference between precious and important
is that precious is of high value or worth, or seemingly regarded as such while important is having relevant and crucial value.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")important
English
Adjective
(en adjective)citation, passage=The story struck the depressingly familiar note with which true stories ring in the tried ears of experienced policemen.
Katrina G. Claw
Rapid Evolution in Eggs and Sperm, volume=101, issue=3, magazine=(American Scientist) , passage=In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.}}