much less
American Heritage Dictionary:
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much less
conj.
And certainly not: "Happiness is an emotion not often spoken of at the magazine, much less experienced" (Brendan Gill).
Fowler's Modern English Usage:
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much more, much less, still more, still less
The principles, much more the practice, need a good deal of scrutiny. I didn't even see him, still less talk to him. Much more (or still more) is used when the grammatical form of the sentence is positive, and much less (or still less) when it is negative. Uncertainty arises when the form is positive but the sense is negative, as with adjectives in un- and words like difficult. In the sentence It is difficult to establish all the facts, much less to reach a conclusion, much more is strictly needed, not much less, but the result is awkward and an alternative such as let alone is often preferred.
| much, mow, movable, mobile | |
| muchly, mucus, mucous, mulatto |
American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms:
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much less
And certainly not, as in He rarely talks about his outside activities, much less his family. The earliest record of this idiom is in John Milton's Paradise Lost
(1671): "The world thou hast not seen, much less her glory."
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Copyrights:
American Heritage Dictionary
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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American Heritage Dictionary of Idioms
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
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