Less and Mean

Related words

Less adjective - Having not so great importance or rank as another.

Usage example: the restaurant's chowder has been declared the state's best by no less a person than the governor himself

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Mean and less are semantically related. In some cases you can use "Mean" instead an adjective "Less".

Nearby Words: lessen, lessening

Mean adjective - Being about midway between extremes of amount or size.

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Less and mean are semantically related. Sometimes you can use "Less" instead an adjective "Mean".

Nearby Words: means, meaning, meanness, meant, meanly

Many news outlets reported this to mean "fuck off," but Scalia claimed the gesture is actually used in Sicilian culture to mean "I couldn't care less."

Source: Italians Talk With Hands
Why do people say "I could care less" when they really mean "I couldn't care less"?

Source: You Make Me Sic
He more or less concluded that they were using "universe" in the old sense of the word, more or less what we mean nowadays by "galaxy" ... which helps some.

Source: Sci Fi Writers Have / No Sense of Units

Cite this Source

Mean and Less. (2016). Retrieved 2026, August 15, from https://thesaurus.plus/related/less/mean

Less & Mean. N.p., 2016. Web. 15 Aug. 2026. <https://thesaurus.plus/related/less/mean>.

Mean or Less. 2016. Accessed August 15, 2026. https://thesaurus.plus/related/less/mean.

Google Ngram Viewer shows how "less" and "mean" have occurred on timeline