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Skirt vs Little - What's the difference?

skirt | little |

As a noun skirt

is an article of clothing, usually worn by women and girls, that hangs from the waist and covers the lower part of the body.

As a verb skirt

is to be on or form the border of.

As a proper noun little is

.

skirt

English

(wikipedia skirt)

Noun

(en noun)
  • An article of clothing, usually worn by women and girls, that hangs from the waist and covers the lower part of the body.
  • * , The Purple Dress :
  • "I like purple best," said Maida. "And old Schlegel has promised to make it for $8. It's going to be lovely. I'm going to have a plaited skirt and a blouse coat trimmed with a band of galloon under a white cloth collar with two rows of—"
  • The part of a dress or robe that hangs below the waist.
  • * 1885 , , The Science of Dress in Theory and Practice , Chapter XI:
  • The petticoats and skirts ordinarily worn are decidedly the heaviest part of the dress ; hence it is necessary that some reform should be effected in these.
  • A loose edging to any part of a dress.
  • * Addison
  • A narrow lace, or a small skirt of ruffled linen, which runs along the upper part of the stays before, and crosses the breast, being a part of the tucker, is called the modesty piece.
  • A petticoat.
  • (pejorative, slang) A woman.
  • * 1931 , , Alleys of Peril :
  • "Mate," said the Cockney, after we'd finished about half the bottle, "it comes to me that we're a couple o' blightin' idjits to be workin' for a skirt ."
    "What d'ya mean?" I asked, taking a pull at the bottle.
    "Well, 'ere's us, two red-blooded 'e-men, takin' orders from a lousy little frail, 'andin' the swag h'over to 'er, and takin' wot she warnts to 'and us, w'en we could 'ave the 'ole lot. Take this job 'ere now--"
  • (UK, colloquial) Women collectively, in a sexual context.
  • (UK, colloquial) Sexual intercourse with a woman.
  • Border; edge; margin; extreme part of anything.
  • * Shakespeare
  • Here in the skirts of the forest.
  • The diaphragm, or midriff, in animals.
  • (Dunglison)

    Usage notes

    * (article of clothing) It was formerly common to speak of “skirts” (plural) rather than “a skirt”. In some cases this served to emphasize an array of skirts of underskirts, or of pleats and folds in a single skirt; in other cases it made little or no difference in meaning.

    Derived terms

    * fender skirt * hobble skirt * mermaid skirt * miniskirt * pencil skirt * prairie skirt * rah-rah skirt * skirt chaser * skirted * skirtless * unskirted

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • To be on or form the border of.
  • The plain was skirted by rows of trees.
  • To move around or along the border of; to avoid the center of.
  • * 1922 , (Virginia Woolf), (w, Jacob's Room) Chapter 1
  • An enormous man and woman (it was early-closing day) were stretched motionless, with their heads on pocket-handkerchiefs, side by side, within a few feet of the sea, while two or three gulls gracefully skirted the incoming waves, and settled near their boots.
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
  • , page=13 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist) , title= Ideas coming down the track , passage=A “moving platform” scheme
  • To cover with a skirt; to surround.
  • * Milton
  • skirted his loins and thighs with downy gold

    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