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least

Pronunciation: /liːst/

The English word “least” has 13 meanings listed here.

adjective

  1. Chiefly used with abstract nouns: less than all others in extent or size; littlest, smallest.
  2. Of two or more animals or plants with the same name: the smaller or smallest.
  3. Lowest in importance or status; most insignificant or unimportant.
  4. Followed by an agent noun: of a person: who does some action to the smallest degree.

determiner

  1. Smallest in amount or extent.
  2. Followed by a plural noun: the smallest number of; the fewest.
  3. Any, no matter how small in amount or extent.

adverb

  1. In a degree below all others; in the lowest or smallest degree.
  2. Used to form superlatives of adjectives, especially those that do not form the superlative by adding -est.

noun

  1. Preceded by the: superlative form of little: most little; the lowest-ranking or most insignificant person or (sometimes) group of people.
  2. Something of the smallest possible extent; an indivisible unit; a minimum.

pronoun

  1. Chiefly preceded by the: superlative form of little: most little; the smallest amount or extent of something.

prepositional phrase

  1. At least.

Etymology

The adjective, determiner, and noun are derived from Middle English leste, lest, last (“(adjective) smallest, least; (noun) smallest thing, etc.; person or thing least in importance; etc.”), from Old English lǣst, a contraction of læsast, læsest (“least”) (also lærest in only one source), from Proto-Germanic *laisistaz (“smallest, least”), from *laisiz (“less”) (possibly from Proto-Indo-European…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.