different between depreciate vs precious

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin depretiare, depretiatus, from de- + pretium (“price”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /d??p?i???e?t/

Verb

depreciate (third-person singular simple present depreciates, present participle depreciating, simple past and past participle depreciated)

1. (transitive) To lessen in price or estimated value; to lower the worth of.
   • 1678, Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe

     […] which […] some over-severe philosophers may look upon fastidiously, or undervalue and depreciate.

   • 1 December, 1783, Edmund Burke, speech on Fox's East India Bill

     To prove that the Americans ought not to be free, we are obliged to depreciate the value of freedom itself.

2. (intransitive) To decline in value over time.
3. (transitive) To belittle or disparage.

Usage notes

• Do not confuse with deprecate (“to disapprove of”). The meaning of deprecate has lately been encroaching on depreciate in the sense 'to belittle'.

Synonyms

• (reduce in value over time):
• (belittle): do down

Antonyms

• (reduce in value over time): appreciate
• (belittle): aggrandise/aggrandize, big up (slang)

Translations

Anagrams

• etacepride

English

Alternative forms

• pretious (obsolete)

Etymology

From Middle English precious, borrowed from Old French precios (“valuable, costly, precious, beloved, also affected, finical”), from Latin preti?sus (“of great value, costly, dear, precious”), from pretium (“value, price”); see price.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?p????s/
• Rhymes: -???s

Adjective

precious (comparative more precious, superlative most precious)

1. Of high value or worth.

2. Regarded with love or tenderness.

3. (derogatory) Treated with too much reverence.

4. (derogatory) Contrived to be cute or charming.
5. (colloquial) Thorough; utter.

   a precious rascal

Synonyms

• (of high value): dear, valuable
• (contrived to charm): saccharine, syrupy, twee

Derived terms

• nonprecious
• precious metal
• precious stone
• preciously
• preciousness
• semiprecious

Related terms

Translations

Noun

precious (plural preciouses)

1. Someone (or something) who is loved; a darling.
   • 1937, J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit

     “It isn't fair, my precious, is it, to ask us what it's got in its nassty little pocketses?”

   • 1909, Mrs. Teignmouth Shore, The Pride of the Graftons (page 57)

     She sat down with the dogs in her lap. "I won't neglect you for any one, will I, my preciouses?"

Adverb

precious (not comparable)

1. Very; an intensifier.

   There is precious little we can do.

   precious few pictures of him exist

Usage notes

This adverb is chiefly used before few and little; usage with other adjectives (slight, small, scant) is much more sporadic, and is in any case limited to the semantic field of “little, small, scarce, few”.

Translations

Further reading

• precious on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Further reading

• precious in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.
• precious in The Century Dictionary, New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911.