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.”

Words Nearby much less

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

How to use much less in a sentence

  • He was too drowsy to hold the thought more than a moment in his mind, much less to reflect upon it.

    The Wave | Algernon Blackwood
  • You know MacRae, Lyn; it's mighty poor business for any man to tread on his toes, much less go walking rough-shod all over him.

    Raw Gold | Bertrand W. Sinclair
  • Martyrdoms do not occur for ethical generalizations, much less for philosophical affirmations.

    Solomon and Solomonic Literature | Moncure Daniel Conway
  • It occurs in well-marked cases of pernicious anemia and leukemia, and, much less commonly, in very severe symptomatic anemias.

    A Manual of Clinical Diagnosis | James Campbell Todd
  • I still think we might have done as well at much less cost by creeping up these 200 or 300 yards by night.