This he said, thinking that Alan would be pleased; but the Highlandman’s vanity was ready to startle at a less matter than that.

I slept even less last night than I did the night before.

Randal is less welcome than Rachel but as her spouse we should invite them both.

This gadget is less useful than I expected.

I'm not any less happy for being on my own.

This section of space is much less empty than that between the stars, […]

That brief moment after the election four years ago, when many Americans thought Mr. Obama’s election would presage a new, less fractious political era, now seems very much a thing of the past.

In plants, the ability to recognize self from nonself plays an important role in fertilization, because self-fertilization will result in less diverse offspring than fertilization with pollen from another individual.

The grammar book was less than (that is, not at all) helpful.

That this is a positive one makes it no less a stereotype, and therefore unacceptable.

Those Rattels are somewhat like the chape of a Rapier, but lesse, which they take from the taile of a snake.

We are likewise ready to maintain with the hazard of all that is near and dear to us, that six is less than seven in all times and all places […].

It is also easy to see that the straight line, representing the locus of centres of buoyancy for a rectangular section, must lie at a less inclination to the base (i.e., to the horizontal) than a line representing the locus of such centres for a parabolic section […]

You have even less sense than an inanimate object.

Earless ghost swift moths become “invisible” to echolocating bats by forming mating clusters close (less than half a meter) above vegetation and effectively blending into the clutter of echoes that the bat receives from the leaves and stems around them.

Now there are three less green bottles hanging on the wall.

... on his land he will have less manure, less corn, and less people; ...

This is not a happy situation as far as the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employes is concerned because it means less jobs for the union's members here at home.

No less than four standard-bearers went before them, carrying huge crimson banners emblazoned with the golden lion.

Although my hosts, G S Aviation, can teach you to fly in Wiltshire, an intensive week at their French airfield means less problems with the weather, cheap but good living, and complete removal from any distractions.

It should then tax all of that as personal income, less the proportion of the car's annual mileage demonstrably clocked up on company business.

1386-90, Gower, Confessio Amantis
What he will make lesse, he lesseth.

c. 1650, Patrick Gordon of Ruthven, A short Abridgement of Britane's Distemper, from the yeares of God 1639 to 1649, printed 1844 for the Spalding Club
Som of the wiser sort, divining upon this vission, attrebute to the pen-knyves the lenth of tym before this should com to pass, and it hath been observed by sindrie that the earles of that hous befor wer the richest in the kingdom, having treasure and store besyde them, but ever since the addittion of this so great a revenue, they have lessed the stock by heavie burdens of debt and ingagment.

The protracted term of life, and the lingering illness through which this gentleman had passed, had neither impaired the original vigour of his mind, nor lessed the uncommon warmth of his affections.

Soon as I lessed the tree of this, it waned — Less cause, gave less effect

The scattered beauties thro' the air, Have lessed the woe, the dread, the care;

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