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Lenient vs Stern - What's the difference?

lenient | stern |

As nouns the difference between lenient and stern

is that lenient is (medicine) a lenitive; an emollient while stern is a star; a small luminous dot that can be seen on the night sky.

As an adjective lenient

is lax; tolerant of deviation; permissive; not strict.

lenient

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Lax; tolerant of deviation; permissive; not strict.
  • The standard is fairly lenient , so use your discretion.
  • * 1847 , , (Jane Eyre), Chapter XVIII
  • But in other points, as well as this, I was growing very lenient to my master; I was forgetting all his faults, for which I had once kept a sharp look-out. It had formerly been my endeavour to study all sides of his character; to take the bad with the good; and from the just weighing of both, to form an equitable judgment. Now I saw no bad.

    Synonyms

    * lax, permissive

    Antonyms

    * strict * severe * stringent

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (medicine) A lenitive; an emollient.
  • stern

    English

    Etymology 1

    From (etyl) stern, sterne, sturne, from (etyl) .

    Adjective

    (er)
  • Having a hardness and severity of nature or manner.
  • * (John Dryden)
  • stern as tutors, and as uncles hard
  • * {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=76, magazine=(The Economist)
  • , title= Snakes and ladders , passage=Risk is everywhere. From tabloid headlines insisting that coffee causes cancer (yesterday, of course, it cured it) to stern government warnings about alcohol and driving, the world is teeming with goblins.}}
  • Grim and forbidding in appearance.
  • * (William Wordsworth)
  • these barren rocks, your stern inheritance

    Etymology 2

    Most likely from (etyl) , from the same Germanic root.

    Noun

    (wikipedia stern) (en noun)
  • (nautical) The rear part or after end of a ship or vessel.
  • * , chapter=7
  • , title= Mr. Pratt's Patients , passage=Old Applegate, in the stern', just set and looked at me, and Lord James, amidship, waved both arms and kept hollering for help. I took a couple of everlasting big strokes and managed to grab hold of the skiff's rail, close to the ' stern .}}
  • (figurative) The post of management or direction.
  • * (William Shakespeare)
  • and sit chiefest stern of public weal
  • The hinder part of anything.
  • (Spenser)
  • The tail of an animal; now used only of the tail of a dog.
  • Antonyms
    * bow
    Derived terms
    * from stem to stern * sternpost
    See also
    * keel

    Etymology 3

    (etyl)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A bird, the black tern.
  • Anagrams

    * * * * ---- ==Mòcheno==

    Noun

    (m)
  • (l) (luminous dot appearing in the night sky)
  • References

    *