Idioms

slight

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(redirected from slightness)

in the least

At all or in any way. These phrases are typically used in the negative. We are not concerned in the least about the impact it may have on our profits this year. A: "Do you mind if I tag along this afternoon?" B: "Not in the least!" I don't know why this artist is such a big deal all of a sudden—his work doesn't impress me in the least.
See also: least

in the slightest

At all; a little bit. This phrase is typically used in the negative. A: "I'm really sorry. Are you mad?" B: "Not in the slightest! I know it was a mistake." I know you've faced a lot of resistance, but it hasn't weakened your resolve in the slightest. I'm impressed. I'm sorry, but stamp collecting doesn't interest me in the slightest.
See also: slight

not have the slightest idea

To be completely unaware of or know no information about something. A: "Is Sally off today?" B: "Oh, I don't have the slightest idea. Ask Elaine, she'll know."
See also: have, idea, not, slight

not in the slightest

Not at all; not even a little bit. A: "I'm really sorry. Are you mad?" B: "Not in the slightest! I know it was a mistake."
See also: not, slight
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

in the least

Also, in the slightest. At all, in the smallest degree. These terms are nearly always used in a negative context. For example, I don't care in the least what you do with the money, or It doesn't matter in the slightest whether or not you attend. [c. 1600] They may also be put as not in the least or not in the slightest, as in I am not in the least worried about the outcome, or The heat doesn't bother me in the slightest. In the least dates from about 1600; in the slightest has been used in the sense of "emphatically unimportant or trifling" since the late 1500s.
See also: least
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

(ˌnot) in the ˈleast

(used in negative sentences, questions and if clauses) (not) at all: She wasn’t in the least afraid.If you are in the least worried about it, then ask somebody for help.
See also: least

not in the ˈslightest

not at all; not in the least: Flying doesn’t worry me in the slightest.
See also: not, slight
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

in the least

At all: I don't mind in the least.
See also: least
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
See also:
References in periodicals archive
Given how few poems most persons' lives demand, we may wish to reverse our judgment on the "slightness" of her poetic output.
The slightness of the film is further confirmed by the newsreel placed at the beginning, reportedly done so at the request of the network in order to pad out the running time.
Suggesting that he is not fully matured, the stage directions stress his slightness of build (The Hunted 1/327) and tellingly continue: "But when he smiles naturally his face has a gentle boyish charm which makes women immediately want to mother him" (the classicists in the audience would perhaps think of paiderastia).
Some of the reviews that greeted Travis Chamberlain's snug, site-specific hotel-room production of Green Eyes, like so many reviews of late Williams, could have been written 40 years ago, they were so full of the vintage fretting about the author's terrible condition when he wrote the play, and about its slightness next to, say, Streetcar.
"Right now we're just trying to get our numbers up," he said of the team's slightness up front.
Readers should not be misled by the apparent slightness of these examples; the pronouns--"most of us", "we", "your"--are routinely used in constructing the dominant cultural group as a simple a-cultural aggregation (Reicher & Hopkins, 2001).
"spreading" in slightness like the base of the faux-golden bowl,
The acknowledgement is perhaps all the more significant for its slightness. But even when the qualities of human nature are more than slight, they can still be occluded from the anthropological world view.
(26) Taste serves as a prominent metaphor for imagining romance's slightness and the need to make only "very moderate use" of its artistic license: the romance-writer must be careful "to mingle the Marvellous rather as a slight, delicate, and evanescent flavor, than as any portion of the actual substance of the dish offered to the Public" (1).
Their poems are lovely, and they are often afflicted with a stultifying slightness.
Being conscious of the slightness of his legal education, he then read for an LL.B.
Moreover, the materialization of Rosamond's previsions is tethered to her narrator-like status, for while "the basis for her structures had the usual airy slightness," Rosamond "was of remarkably detailed and realistic imagination when the foundation had been once presupposed" (ibid.).
WWDTW's first section was composed of asides and little pieces, providing an atmosphere of slightness; Henighan, wisely, places the substantial essay first in Afterlife, and it is this essay, the central exhibit of Henighan's thought (and the best part of the book) that I shall discuss.
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