Through vs While - What's the difference?
through | while |
From one side of an opening to the other.
:
*{{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.
*
*: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.
:
*{{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.
:
Passing from one side of an object to the other.
:
Finished; complete.
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Valueless; without a future.
:
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.
:
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.
An uncertain duration of time, a period of time.
During the same time that.
* , chapter=12
, title= * 1948 , , North from Mexico / The Spanish-Speaking People of The United States , J. B. Lippincott Company, page 25,
* {{quote-magazine, date=2013-06-07, author=David Simpson
, volume=188, issue=26, page=36, magazine=(The Guardian Weekly)
, title= Although.
* 2013 September 28, (Kenan Malik), "
(Northern England, Scotland) Until.
* Beaumont and Fletcher
As long as.
* I. Watts
To pass (time) idly.
* Longfellow
To loiter.
As nouns the difference between through and while
is that through is a large slab of stone laid on a tomb while while is an uncertain duration of time, a period of time.As a preposition through
is from one side of an opening to the other.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 conjunction while is
during the same time that.As a verb while is
to pass (time) idly.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)while
English
Noun
(en noun)- He lectured for quite a long while .
Conjunction
(wikipedia while) (English Conjunctions)Mr. Pratt's Patients, passage=While the powwow was going on the big woman came back again. She was consider'ble rumpled and scratched up, but there was fire in her eye.}}
- While De Anza was exploring the Bay of San Francisco, seeking a site for the presidio, the American colonists on the eastern seaboard, three thousand miles away, were celebrating the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Fantasy of navigation, passage=Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.}}
London Is Special, but Not That Special," New York Times (retrieved 28 September 2013):
- While Britain’s recession has been deep and unforgiving, in London it has been relatively shallow.
- I may be conveyed into your chamber; I'll lie under your bed while midnight.
- Use your memory; you will sensibly experience a gradual improvement, while you take care not to overload it.
Verb
(whil)- The lovely lady whiled the hours away.
- (Spectator)