Speck vs Small - What's the difference?
speck | small |
(countable) A tiny spot, especially of dirt etc.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (uncountable) A juniper-flavoured ham originally from Tyrol.
A very small thing; a particle; a whit.
* (Walter Savage Landor), quoted in 1971, Ernest Dilworth, Walter Savage Landor , Twayne Publishers,
A small etheostomoid fish, , common in the eastern United States.
To mark with specks; to speckle.
* 1667 , '', 1991, Stephen Orgel, ?Jonathan Goldberg (editors), ''The Major Works , 2003, paperback,
The blubber of whales or other marine mammals.
The fat of the hippopotamus.
Not large or big; insignificant; few in numbers or size.
* , chapter=5
, title= * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=70, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (figuratively) Young, as a child.
(writing, incomparable) Minuscule or lowercase, referring to written letters.
Envincing little worth or ability; not large-minded; paltry; mean.
* Carlyle
Not prolonged in duration; not extended in time; short.
In a small fashion.
* (William Shakespeare), (w, A Midsummer Night's Dream) , Act I, scene 2, line 49:
In or into small pieces.
* 2009 , Ingrid Hoffman, CBS Early Morning for September 28, 2009 (transcription)
(obsolete) To a small extent.
* (rfdate) (William Shakespeare), Sonnets , "Lucrece", line 1273
Any part of something that is smaller or slimmer than the rest, now usually with anatomical reference to the back.
(UK, in the plural) Underclothes.
(obsolete) To make little or less.
To become small; to dwindle.
* Thomas Hardy
As a noun speck
is bacon.As a proper noun small is
.speck
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) .Noun
(en noun)Out of the gloom, passage=[Rural solar plant] schemes are of little help to industry or other heavy users of electricity. Nor is solar power yet as cheap as the grid. For all that, the rapid arrival of electric light to Indian villages is long overdue. When the national grid suffers its next huge outage, as it did in July 2012 when hundreds of millions were left in the dark, look for specks of light in the villages.}}
page 88,
- Onward, and many bright specks bubble up along the blue Aegean; islands, every one of which, if the songs and stories of the pilots are true, is the monument of a greater man than I am.
Synonyms
* (small thing) See also .Verb
(en verb)- paper specked by impurities in the water used in its manufacture
page 534,
- Each flower of slender stalk, whose head though gay / Carnation, purple, azure, or specked with gold, / Hung drooping unsustained,
Etymology 2
Noun
(-)Anagrams
*small
English
Adjective
(er)The Mirror and the Lamp, passage=Here, in the transept and choir, where the service was being held, one was conscious every moment of an increasing brightness; colours glowing vividly beneath the circular chandeliers, and the rows of small lights on the choristers' desks flashed and sparkled in front of the boys' faces, deep linen collars, and red neckbands.}}
Engineers of a different kind, passage=Private-equity nabobs bristle at being dubbed mere financiers. Piling debt onto companies’ balance-sheets is only a small part of what leveraged buy-outs are about, they insist. Improving the workings of the businesses they take over is just as core to their calling, if not more so. Much of their pleading is public-relations bluster.}}
- A true delineation of the smallest man is capable of interesting the greatest man.
- a small space of time
Synonyms
* (not large or big) little, microscopic, minuscule, minute, tiny; see also * little, wee (Scottish), young * (of written letters) lowercase, minusculeAntonyms
* See also * (not large or big) capital, big, generous (said of an amount of something given), large * adult, grown-up, old * (of written letters) big, capital, majuscule, uppercaseDerived terms
* small arm * small arms * small beer * small calorie * small-cell lung cancer * small change * small claims court * smallclothes * smaller European elm bark beetle * small forward * small fry * smallgoods * smallholder * smallholding * small hours * small intestine * smallish * small-minded * smallmouth * smallmouth bass * smallmouth black bass * smallness * small potatoes * smallpox * smalls * small-scale * small screen * small stuff * smallsword * small talk * small-time * * small wonder * twice as small * twice as small asAdverb
(er)- That's all one: you shall play it in a mask, and / you may speak as small as you will.
- That's going to go in there. We've got some chives small chopped as well.
- It small avails my mood.
Derived terms
* writ smallNoun
(en noun)Derived terms
* small of the backVerb
(en verb)- And smalled till she was nought at all.
