Diccionario ingles.comDiccionario ingles.com
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home 		English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Better half   /bˈɛtər hæf/   Listen
adjective
Better  adj.  (compar. of Good)
1.
Having good qualities in a greater degree than another; as, a better man; a better physician; a better house; a better air. "Could make the worse appear The better reason."
2.
Preferable in regard to rank, value, use, fitness, acceptableness, safety, or in any other respect. "To obey is better than sacrifice." "It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes."
3.
Greater in amount; larger; more.
4.
Improved in health; less affected with disease; as, the patient is better.
5.
More advanced; more perfect; as, upon better acquaintance; a better knowledge of the subject.
All the better. See under All, adv.
Better half, an expression used to designate one's wife. "My dear, my better half (said he), I find I must now leave thee."
To be better off, to be in a better condition.
Had better. (See under Had). Note: The phrase had better, followed by an infinitive without to, is idiomatic. The earliest form of construction was "were better" with a dative; as, "Him were better go beside." () i. e., It would be better for him, etc. At length the nominative (I, he, they, etc.) supplanted the dative and had took the place of were. Thus we have the construction now used. "By all that's holy, he had better starve Than but once think this place becomes thee not."


noun
Half  n.  (pl. halves)  
1.
Part; side; behalf. (Obs.) "The four halves of the house."
2.
One of two equal parts into which anything may be divided, or considered as divided; sometimes followed by of; as, a half of an apple. "Not half his riches known, and yet despised." "A friendship so complete Portioned in halves between us."
Better half. See under Better.
In half, in two; an expression sometimes used improperly instead of in halves or into halves; as, to cut in half. (Colloq.)
In one's half or On one's half, in one's behalf; on one's part. (Obs.)
To cry halves, to claim an equal share with another.
To go halves, to share equally between two.





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words


Share |




"Better half" Quotes from Famous Books



... of Ministers:—State of the Facts: "They pretend that their education, either at School or University, hath been very chargeable, and therefore ought to be repaired in future by a plentiful maintenance: whereas it is well known that the better half of them, and ofttimes poor and pitiful boys, of no merit or promising hopes that might entitle them to the public provision but their poverty and the unjust favour of friends, have had the most of their breeding, both at School and University, by scholarships, exhibitions, and fellowships, ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... stop writing at Edinburgh before the better half of my tale was told, and must now begin there again, to speak of an excursion into the Highlands, ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... place, so pathetically begging to be gardened, may not be your future home, may never be your property, and it is right enough that a feeling for ownership should begin to shape your daily life. But let it not misshape it. You know that ownership is not all of life nor the better half of it, and it is quite as good for you to give the fact due recognition by gardening early in life as it was for ...
— The Amateur Garden • George W. Cable
... our troops are in the field, there cannot be a more unquestionable fact, than their immense inferiority to the French in the business of cookery. The English soldier lays his piece of ration beef at once on the coals, by which means the one and the better half is lost, and the other burned to a cinder. Whereas, six French troopers fling their messes into the same pot, and extract a delicious soup, ten times more nutritious than the simple roti could ever be."—BLACKWOOD'S Edinburgh Magazine, ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner
... intolerance of boyish society. I ought to have entered upon my triennium of school-boy servitude at the age of thirteen. As things were,—a delay with which I had nothing to do myself,—this and the native character of my mind had thrown the whole arrangement awry. For the better half of the three years I endured it patiently. But it had at length begun to eat more corrosively into my peace of mind than ever I had anticipated. The head-master was substantially superannuated for the duties of his place. Not that intellectually he showed any symptoms ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey


More quotes...


Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com