RATHER • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Rather

Add this Dictionary
to your website!
See more options...

/rˈæðər/ /rˈəðər/ Listen

adverb

Rather adv.

1.

Earlier; sooner; before. (Obs.) "Thou shalt, quod he, be rather false than I." "A good mean to come the rather to grace."

2.

More readily or willingly; preferably. "My soul chooseth... death rather than my life."

3.

On the other hand; to the contrary of what was said or suggested; instead. "Was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse."

4.

Of two alternatives conceived of, this by preference to, or as more likely than, the other; somewhat. "He sought throughout the world, but sought in vain, And nowhere finding, rather feared her slain."

5.

More properly; more correctly speaking. "This is an art Which does mend nature, change it rather, but The art itself is nature."

6.

In some degree; somewhat; as, the day is rather warm; the house is rather damp.

The rather, the more so; especially; for better reason; for particular cause. "You are come to me in happy time, The rather for I have some sport in hand."

Had rather, or Would rather, prefer to; prefers to; as, he had rather, or would rather go than stay. "I had rather speak five words with my understanding than ten thousand words in an unknown tongue." See Had rather, under Had.

adjective

Rather adj. Prior; earlier; former. (Obs.) "Now no man dwelleth at the rather town."

See images of 'Rather'

Etymology of 'Rather'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

Share |

"Rather" Quotes from Famous Books

... this resort are simplicity, home-likeness, unostentation. It makes its appeal especially to the thoughtful and the studious, the not luxuriously rich, those who love Nature rather than the elegance of a first-class hotel, and who desire to climb trails, study trees, hunt, fish, and generally recreate out-of-doors rather than ...

— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James

... winner, at that, Waseche. I was watching him when he put out his hand to touch Leloo. He would rather have shoved it into the fire. There's something to him, even if the names did get mixed on the package when they shipped him in. I suppose that somewhere over on the Tanana there's a big, red-eyed, double-fisted roughneck charging around among the construction ...

— Connie Morgan in the Fur Country • James B. Hendryx

... were finished. Then she thought that the remembering of those days of her happiness and her pain, and the ache of what might have been and of what never was, had come to torture her again. But the feeling was rather the weight of some imminent thing, the ravage of something that grew with what it fed on, the grasp upon her of something that would ...

— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale

... rather high-class audaciousness on the part of a young rascal who had just been rescued from a worse position while committing the same offence. The task of getting them round was nothing compared to that of getting them humoured into a sufficiently sober condition so that ...

— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman

... fertile brains of officers' servants. Scraps of information which they gathered while in attendance at the officers' mess dugout were pieced together, and much new material of their own invention added. The striving was for piquancy rather than plausibility. A wild tale was always better than a dull one; furthermore the "batmen" were our only sources of official information, and could always command a hearing. When one of them came down the trench with that ...

— Kitchener's Mob - Adventures of an American in the British Army • James Norman Hall

Copyright © 2025 e-Free Translation.com