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greater

adjective

Form of great , comparative of great.

Simple meaning

Including the surrounding urban areas and conurbation.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

grayter

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IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈɡɹeɪtɚ

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adjective

  1. usually capitalized

    Including the surrounding urban areas and conurbation (of a city or other large settlement).

  2. The larger geographic or administrative area that encompasses or belongs to a place (especially if both share the same name).

  3. Of two (or, rarely, more than two) things: the larger in size (bigger), in value, in importance etc.

  4. attributive

    In the names of places or geographic features

  5. Referring to a state at its fullest historical (or desired future) extent including colonies, annexed land, etc.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
A1 · Beginner (estimated)
Frequency
Very Common
Typical Use
Everyday English

More ways to use greater

  • “For the greater good of the community.”adjective

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

Two / greater

greater importancegreater emphasis

Referring

greater extent

Other combinations

greater partfar greatergreater numbergreater degreegreater detail

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • greatnounBase word

    A person who has achieved distinction and honor in some field.

Word family

Words built from the same root.

  • greatnessnounDerived noun

    The property possessed by something or someone of outstanding importance or eminence.

  • greatlyadverbDerived adverb

    To an extraordinary extent or degree.

Compound terms

Established multiword terms.

  • greater antillesnounCompound term

    A group of islands in the western West Indies.

  • greater burdocknounCompound term

    Burdock having heart-shaped leaves found in open woodland, hedgerows and rough grassland of Europe (except extreme N) and Asia Minor.

  • greater butterfly orchidnounCompound term

    South European orchid with dark green flowers that are larger and less fragrant than Platanthera bifolia.

  • greater celandinenounCompound term

    Perennial herb with branched woody stock and bright yellow flowers.

  • greater knapweednounCompound term

    Tall European perennial having purple flower heads.

  • greater kudunounCompound term

    A variety of kudu.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Antonyms

Sense: including the surrounding urban areas and conurbation (of a city

lesser

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.