Through vs Amidst - What's the difference?
through | amidst |
From one side of an opening to the other.
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*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-01, volume=407, issue=8838
, page=13 (Technology Quarterly), magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Entering, then later leaving.
:
*
*:Athelstan Arundel walked home all the way, foaming and raging.He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them.
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*:Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.
*{{quote-magazine, date=2013-05-25, volume=407, issue=8837, page=74, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= Surrounded by (while moving).
:
*, chapter=1
, title= *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-22, volume=407, issue=8841, page=76, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= By means of.
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*{{quote-news, year=2011, date=September 28, author=Tom Rostance, title=Arsenal 2-1 Olympiakos
, work=BBC Sport *{{quote-magazine, date=2013-07-20, volume=408, issue=8845, magazine=(The Economist)
, title= (lb) To (or up to) and including, with all intermediate values.
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Passing from one side of an object to the other.
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Finished; complete.
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Valueless; without a future.
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No longer interested.
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*
*:“I'm through with all pawn-games,” I laughed. “Come, let us have a game of lansquenet. Either I will take a farewell fall out of you or you will have your sevenfold revenge”.
*1977 , Iggy Pop,
*:I'm worth a million in prizes / Yeah, I'm through with sleeping on the sidewalk / No more beating my brains / No more beating my brains / With the liquor and drugs / With the liquor and drugs
Proceeding from origin to destination without delay due to change of equipment.
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From one side to the other by way of the interior.
From one end to the other.
To the end.
Completely.
Out into the open.
In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among.
* 1748 . David Hume. Enquiries Concerning the Human Understanding and Concerning the Principles of Morals. London: Oxford University Press, 1973. § 4.
* 1912 , (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 5
As prepositions the difference between through and amidst
is that through is from one side of an opening to the other while amidst is in the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among.As an adjective through
is passing from one side of an object to the other.As an adverb through
is from one side to the other by way of the interior.As a noun through
is a large slab of stone laid on a tomb.through
English
Alternative forms
* thorow (obsolete) * thruEtymology 1
From (etyl) *. See also thorough.Preposition
(English prepositions)Ideas coming down the track, passage=A “moving platform” scheme
No hiding place, passage=In America alone, people spent $170 billion on “direct marketing”—junk mail of both the physical and electronic varieties—last year. Yet of those who received unsolicited adverts through the post, only 3% bought anything as a result. If the bumf arrived electronically, the take-up rate was 0.1%. And for online adverts the “conversion” into sales was a minuscule 0.01%.}}
Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
Snakes and ladders, passage=Risk is everywhere.
citation, passage=But the home side were ahead in the eighth minute through 18-year-old Oxlade-Chamberlain.}}
The attack of the MOOCs, passage=Since the launch early last year of […] two Silicon Valley start-ups offering free education through MOOCs, massive open online courses, the ivory towers of academia have been shaken to their foundations. University brands built in some cases over centuries have been forced to contemplate the possibility that information technology will rapidly make their existing business model obsolete.}}
Derived terms
(terms derived using the preposition "through") * clear through * feedthrough * get through * go through * look through * right through * through and through * through with * throughput * throughwayAdjective
(-)Adverb
(-)- The arrow went straight through .
- Others slept; he worked straight through .
- She read the letter through .
- He said he would see it through .
- Leave the yarn in the dye overnight so the color soaks through .
- The American army broke through at St. Lo.
References
* Andrea Tyler and Vyvyan Evans, "Bounded landmarks", in The Semantics of English Prepositions: Spatial Scenes, Embodied Meaning and Cognition , Cambridge University Press, 2003, 0-521-81430 8Etymology 2
From (etyl)amidst
English
Alternative forms
* amidest (obsolete) * amiddst (qualifier) * amiddest (obsolete) * amydst (obsolete) * amyddst (qualifier) * amyddest (qualifier)Preposition
(English prepositions)- Be a philosopher ; but amidst all your philosophy, be still a man.
- Not so, however, with Tarzan, the man-child. His life amidst the dangers of the jungle had taught him to meet emergencies with self-confidence, and his higher intelligence resulted in a quickness of mental action far beyond the powers of the apes.
Synonyms
* amid * among * amongstUsage notes
As with other words with excrescent suffix , amidst is generally considered synonymous with simpler amid, and amid is preferred by style guides on both sides of the Atlantic.TimesOnline], [http://www.guardian.co.uk/styleguide/w The Guardian] and [http://www.hansard.ca/styleguide.pdf Hansard(Canadian parliament) Further, amidst /amid'' are similar in meaning to – but distinct from – ''amongst''/''among''. ''Amid]](st)'' denotes that something is "in the midst of", "surrounded by" other things, and is used when the idea of separate things is not prominent. ''[[among, Among(st)'' denotes that something is mingling with other separable things ("blessed art thou among women").