phrases “single largest” or “largest single” English Language & Usage Stack Exchange March 20, 2025 – Posted in: Forex Trading

Would it be ok to say “from smaller to larger” or do I have to say “from smallest to largest”E.g., I’m using the batteries from smallest/smaller to largest/larger capacity. There is a difference between a majority, and the majority. The majority of students in the class are between 30 and 35.

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Compare this to ‘the biggest lake’.To my mind, the largest is the one with the greatest surface area,the biggest may have a smaller surface area but be deeper and thereforecontain more water…and be ‘bigger’. Of course, one could just as wellassign the other way..but there IS a distinction.

How should we describe the largest group in a set when its share accounts for less than 50%?

The fact of having the largest share of the votes cast, when this is less than an absolute majority. Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Therefore, in your examples, “the largest single contributor to” seems incorrect, although the full context could prove me wrong. Ian Levy won 42.7% of the vote in the constituency, so it seems inappropriate to say “majority”.

I would posit that my post here is not a duplicate of that question, and here’s why. However, as you are comparing two numbers you should use the comparative not the superlative. It should be “7 is the smaller and 9 is the greater (or larger) number”.

Can we say “majority” to the largest portion when it comprises less than 50% of the whole?

This term can also be defined as an unreal number, which has the form a+bi, where a is equivalent to 0. As others have commented, in this sort of election, you win, or you don’t. This does, however, require understanding by the reader of the electoral system being employed. The lion’s share is a phrase which refers to the major share of something.

It would be useful to have a word/short phrase to signify that the Conservatives won a greater share of the vote than any other party. “Largest single” is not incorrect (think “this is the largest single cell”), it just has a different meaning. But I cannot at the moment conceive of a sentence with “the largest single contributor to”. In mathematics and computer science, we often use greatest in reference to the greater than relationship. When referring to a set or range, maximum or upper bound are also used. Biggest and largest are both acceptable for non-technical English, although in a mathematical context they may be confused with the greatest magnitude (absolute value).

“Largest snake to ever live discovered in an Indian mine.” VS “Largest snake to have ever lived ……”?

Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers. I commonly hear statements like “the largest single contributor to…” and “the single largest factor…”. It seems as though “largest single” and “single largest” should have slightly different meanings, possibly that one would indicate a majority while the other a plurality, yet I can’t find a clear answer. In region A, the most frequent time frame was “Short Term”, which accounted for 47% of the region’s projects and 18% of the area’s estimated project cost total. The largest share of the region’s cost estimate total belongs to projects classified as “long term”, which accounts for 9% of the region’s projects and 47% of the region’s cost estimate total.

Most people will interpret it as a majority and will suspect your motives if you use the term for 32% of the M&Ms. The research so far indicates that both terms largest and greatest are used in educational material. Largest implies size, but greater implies value, so greater seems more appropriate when dealing with abstract concepts. I am interested in why one may be more appropriate than the other when dealing with young learners, keeping in mind common misconceptions that children can make.

We would use Highest and Lowest where I work (legal, nonscientific) . In this instance I am looking for a synonym for maximum in the context of an array. The two aren’t always interchangeable in my opinion.Take this example.

Note how no single color accounts for 50% or more of the M&M’s, but red M&M’s represent the largest share across all colors. I feel like “largest” is used the most with highest right behind it. However, if I ignore your example, and focus on your main question ‘what’s the difference between largest and biggest’, I’d say that use them with caution. The verb “live” is not in a present tense form, it is an infinitive and has no tense, so it could be used about past or non-past. A perfect infinitive is possible but not required.

• A perfect infinitive is possible but not required.
• Sadly, I think that using the term “plurality” won’t help much with clarity.
• Based on the examples you provided, it should probably be single largest, which is a set expression.
• Symbolic of the ‘red wall’ being broken in this election was Blyth Valley, where the Conservative Ian Levy won with 42.7% of the vote.
• Here are the graphs summarizing the number and total cost the projects by region and by time scale.

Based on the examples you provided, it should probably be single largest, which is a set expression. Symbolic of the ‘red wall’ being broken in this election was seeing Blyth Valley falling to the Conservatives. The result you describe is a consequence not of Ian Levy’s vote-count (or share of the vote) per se, but how that compares to those of the other candidates. In technical language, as might be appropriate for a discussion about statistics you could say that a plurality was in group c. You couldn’t say that less than 50% of the students was the majority of the students; however, you could say that the number was a majority in terms of what they represent. So, I would have thought “….to have ever lived ….” would follow to emphasize the past, but as you can see, the verb (live) is in the present form in the title.

Both are vague as to anything other than having done better than anybody else. Symbolic of the ‘red wall’ being broken in this election was Blyth Valley, where the Conservative Ian Levy won with 42.7% of the vote. Symbolic of the ‘red wall’ being broken in this election was seeing Blyth Valley falling to the Conservative candidate Ian Levy. This word is used primarily in the United States. According to the Wikipedia article on the topic, relative majority is preferred in the United Kingdom. The structure “…to ever live…” caught my attention, because the title is clearly telling about animals that lived long long ago.

Both “greater” and “larger” are perfectly acceptable. They mean the same, and have roughly equal usage in Google NGram, which is a good indication (but not infallible). Please include the research you’ve done, or consider if your question suits our English Language Learners site better. Questions that can be answered using commonly-available references are off-topic. In the latter expression, “single” is actually redundant because “largest” is a superlative. A pure number is a kind of a number that has a dimensionless quantity and it does not have physical unit.

‘Big’ is one of those great shortcut words, like ‘nice’ and get’, that have a multitude of uses we resort to when speed of communication is required. However, as you can see, in writing we often make a more precise choice or attempt to avoid repeating the same word, etc. We often like to express something in English using just one word. In this case it’s not difficult and neatly done if we omit the preposition and the definite article. Best vaguely implies a majority without stating so. Better perhaps implies not a majority but better than anyone Umarkerts Review else’s part, which again implies winning an election.

• We often like to express something in English using just one word.
• Note how no single color accounts for 50% or more of the M&M’s, but red M&M’s represent the largest share across all colors.
• In technical language, as might be appropriate for a discussion about statistics you could say that a plurality was in group c.
• Stack Exchange network consists of 183 Q&A communities including Stack Overflow, the largest, most trusted online community for developers to learn, share their knowledge, and build their careers.

It’s somewhat questionable, and I prefer the present perfect as well, but it’s not wrong. You might understand it as following “It was the largest snake…”, where the simple past seems to license the bare infinitive a bit better. “To have ever lived” would be an good alternative. But in a headline, the shorter form may have been preferred.

While the statements above are numerically accurate and precise, I feel they are a bit clunky and bloated. Sadly, I think that using the term “plurality” won’t help much with clarity. Here are the graphs summarizing the number and total cost the projects by region and by time scale. Definition #1 leads me to believe that I can use the word most for the red M&M’s. But the second definition (“the majority of”) leads be to believe that I cannot, because the term “majority” quite explicitly refers to “50% or more” (see Merriam-Webster’s definition of the word “majority” here).