different between bigness vs breadth

English

Etymology

From big +? -ness.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US) IPA^(key): /?b??n?s/

Noun

bigness (countable and uncountable, plural bignesses)

1. (now rare) Size. [from 15th c.]
   • 1594, Christopher Marlowe, Edward II, Act II, Scene 1, [1]

     Mine old lord, whiles he liv'd, was so precise,

     That he would take exceptions at my buttons,

     And, being like pins' heads, blame me for the bigness;

     Which made me curate-like in mine attire,

   • 1674, John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II, lines 1051-3, [2]

     And, fast by, hanging in a golden chain,

     This pendent World, in bigness as a star

     Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.

   • 1704, Isaac Newton, Opticks, London: William Innys, 1730, Book 3, Part I, p. 346, [3]

     Do not several sorts of Rays make Vibrations of several bignesses, which according to their bignesses excite Sensations of several Colours, much after the manner that the Vibrations of the Air, according to their several bignesses excite Sensations of several Sounds?

   • 1726, Jonathan Swift, Gulliver's Travels, Part I, Chapter VI, [4]

     […] the tallest horses and oxen are between four and five inches in height, the sheep an inch and half, more or less: their geese about the bigness of a sparrow, and so the several gradations downwards till you come to the smallest, which to my sight, were almost invisible […]
2. The characteristic of being big. [from 15th c.]
   • 1944, Emily Carr, The House of Small, "Art and the House," [6]

     They liked what they liked—would tolerate no innovations. My change in thought and expression had angered them into fierce denouncement. To expose a thing deeper than its skin surface was to them an indecency. They ridiculed my striving for bigness, depth.

Anagrams

• besings, sigbens

English

Etymology

From Middle English breedthe, bredethe, alteration (due to nouns ending in -th: length, strength, wrength, etc.) of Middle English brede ("breadth"; see bread). Equivalent to broad +? -th. Cognate with Scots bredth (“breadth”), Saterland Frisian Bratte (“breadth”), West Frisian breedte (“breadth”), Dutch breedte (“breadth”), German Low German Breddte, Breddt (“breadth”), German Breite (“breadth”), Danish bredde (“breadth”), Swedish bredd (“breadth”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /b??d?/, /b??t?/, /b???/
• Rhymes: -?d?

Noun

breadth (countable and uncountable, plural breadths)

1. The extent or measure of how broad or wide something is.
2. A piece of fabric of standard width.
3. Scope or range, especially of knowledge or skill.
4. (art) A style in painting in which details are strictly subordinated to the harmony of the whole composition.
5. (graph theory) The length of the longest path between two vertices in a graph.

Synonyms

• (extent or measure of how broad something is): width
• (piece of fabric of standard width):
• (scope or range): extent, range, scope, size

Derived terms

Translations