Definition of dear

"dear" in the noun sense

1. beloved, dear, dearest, honey, love

a beloved person used as terms of endearment

2. lamb, dear

a sweet innocent mild-mannered person (especially a child)

"dear" in the adjective sense

1. beloved, darling, dear

dearly loved

2. dear, good, near

with or in a close or intimate relationship

"a good friend"

"my sisters and brothers are near and dear"

3. dear, devout, earnest, heartfelt

sincerely earnest

"one's dearest wish"

"devout wishes for their success"

"heartfelt condolences"

4. costly, dear, high-priced, pricey, pricy

having a high price

"costly jewelry"

"high-priced merchandise"

"much too dear for my pocketbook"

"a pricey restaurant"

"dear" in the adverb sense

1. dearly, affectionately, dear

with affection

"she loved him dearly"

"he treats her affectionately"

2. dearly, dear

at a great cost

"he paid dearly for the food"

"this cost him dear"

Source: WordNet® (An amazing lexical database of English)

Princeton University "About WordNet®."
WordNet®. Princeton University. 2010.


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Quotations for dear

Good cheap is dear. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

My dear, my better half. [ Sir Philip Sidney ]

To buy dear is not bounty. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Weigh right and sell dear. [ Proverb ]

Wit may be bought too dear. [ Proverb ]

Praising what is lost,
Makes the remembrance dear. [ William Shakespeare ]

Another's bread costs dear. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

He buys very dear who begs. [ Portuguese Proverb ]

Good cheap is dear at long-run. [ Proverb ]

Ever absent, ever near;
Still I see thee, still I hear;
Yet I cannot reach thee, dear! [ Francis Kazinczy ]

He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all. [ Coleridge ]

O name forever sad, forever dear! [ Pope ]

Yet still we hug the dear deceit. [ Nathaniel Cotton ]

A bad thing is dear at any price. [ Proverb ]

Dear is cheap, and cheap is dear. [ Portuguese Proverb ]

A man may buy even gold too dear. [ Proverb ]

Welcome, dear Goldenrod, once more.
Thou mimic, flowering elm!
I always think that summer's store
Hangs from thy laden stem. [ Horace H. Scudder ]

O God! that bread should be so dear,
And flesh and blood so cheap! [ Hood ]

Though lost to sight, to memory dear
Thou ever wilt remain. [ George Linley: Song ]

I would not love thee, dear, so much,
Loved I not honour more. [ Lovelace ]

The first men that our Saviour dear
Did choose to wait upon Him here,
Blest fishers were; and fish the last
Food was, that He on earth did taste:
I therefore strive to follow those,
Whom He to follow Him hath chose. [ Izaak Walton ]

Hush, my dear, lie still and slumber.
Holy angels guard thy bed!
Heavenly blessings without number
Gently falling on thy head. [ Watts ]

Still are the thoughts to memory dear. [ Sir Walter Scott ]

Ah, youth! forever dear, forever kind. [ Homer ]

How beautiful is victory, but how dear! [ Boufflers ]

Dear son of memory, great heir of fame. [ Milton on Shakespeare ]

If a man but knew what would be dear,
He need be a merchant but only one year. [ Proverb ]

Dear eyes! - do not my heart forsake.
Shine, like the stars within the lake, -
Shine, and the darksome shadows break. [ Augustine J. H. Dugane ]

And fondly mourn the dear delusions gone. [ Prior ]

Experience is good, if not bought too dear. [ Proverb ]

A man often pays dear for a small frugality. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

And love the sin for the dear sinner's sake. [ Juvenal ]

To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm, than all the gloss of art. [ Goldsmith ]

Dear beauteous death, the jewel of the just. [ Henry Vaughan ]

We'll bark ourselves if we buy dogs so dear. [ Proverb ]

So dear to heaven is saintly chastity,
That, when a soul is found sincerely so,
A thousand liveried angels lackey her,
Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt. [ Milton ]

Perseverance, dear my lord,
Keeps honour bright: to have done is to hang
Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail
In monumental mockery. [ Shakespeare ]

Beauty too rich for use; for earth too dear. [ William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet ]

A thing you don't want is dear at any price. [ Proverb ]

A pleasure long expected is dear enough sold. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]

Dear as the light that visits these sad eyes;
Dear as the ruddy drops that warm my heart. [ Gray ]

He has paid dear, very dear, for his whistle. [ Ben. Franklin ]

Tell them, dear, if eyes were made for seeing,
Then beauty is its own excuse for being. [ Emerson ]

For dhrames always go by conthraries, my dear. [ Samuel Lover ]

There is ever a song somewhere, my dear,
Be the skies above or dark or fair,
There is ever a song that our hearts may hear -
There is ever a song somewhere, my dear -
There is ever a song somewhere. [ James Whitcomb Riley ]

It is expectation makes a blessing dear;
Heaven were not heaven if we knew what it were. [ John Suckling ]

Beauty? thou pretty plaything! dear deceit,
That steals so softly over the stripling's heart
And gives it a new pulse unknown before! [ Blair ]

Far-fetched and dear-bought, is good for ladies. [ Proverb ]

Authors, like coins, grow dear as they grow old. [ Pope ]

How dear is our native land to all noble hearts ! [ Voltaire ]

Things all are big with jest; nothing that's plain
But may be witty, if thou hast the vein ...
Many affecting wit beyond their power,
Have got to be a dear fool for an hour. [ George Herbert ]

We will bark ourselves ere we'll buy dogs so dear. [ Proverb ]

Believing hear, what you deserve to hear.
Your birthday as my own to me is dear.
Blest and distinguish'd days! which we should prize
The first, the kindest bounty of the skies.
But yours gives most; for mine did only lend,
Me to the world; yours gave to me a friend. [ Martial ]

Oh! if there be, on this earthly sphere,
A boon, an offering heaven holds dear,
'Tis the last libation Liberty draws
From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her cause. [ Moore ]

Call it a rag, if you please; my rag is dear to me. [ Molière ]

Wisdom is a good purchase, though we pay dear for it. [ Proverb ]

Compliments cost nothing, yet many pay dear for them. [ Proverb ]

A lamb is as dear to a poor man as an ox to the rich. [ Proverb ]

My dear, your everlasting blue velvet quite tires me. [ Thackeray ]

Good name in man and woman, dear my lord,
Is the immediate jewel of their souls;
Who steals my purse steals trash;
'Tis something, nothing;
'Twas mine, 'tis his, and has been slave to thousands;
But he that filches from me my good name,
Robs me of that which not enriches him,
And makes me poor indeed. [ William Shakespeare ]

Peace, dear nurse of arts, plenties and joyful births. [ William Shakespeare ]

I hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear. [ William Shakespeare ]

He that licks honey from a nettle pays too dear for it. [ Proverb ]

If every fool were to wear a bauble, they would grow dear. [ Proverb ]

It is not a sin to sell dear, but it is to make ill measure. [ Proverb ]

Gray, dear friend, is all theory, and green life's golden tree. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

Honesty may be dear bought, but can ne'er be an ill pennyworth. [ Scotch Proverb ]

Honesty may be dear bought, but can never be a dear pennyworth. [ Proverb ]

Business is bought at a dear hand where there is small despatch. [ Bacon ]

When a man becomes dear to me, I have touched the goal of fortune. [ Ralph Waldo Emerson ]

As prodigal of all dear grace as Nature was in making graces dear. [ Shakespeare ]

Our very wretchedness grows dear to us when suffering for one we love. [ Bulwer-Lytton ]

His clothes are worth a hundred pounds, but his wit is dear of a groat. [ Proverb ]

His sweetest dreams were still of that dear voice that soothed his infancy. [ Southey ]

It is one of heaven's best gifts to hold such a dear creature in ones arms. [ Goethe ]

If I had given four-pence for that advice, I had bought it a groat too dear. [ Proverb ]

Buy not what you want, but what you need; what you don't want is dear at a cent. [ Cato ]

A dear bargain is always disagreeable, particularly as it is a reflection upon the buyer's judgment. [ Pliny ]

Humility is a virtue of so general, so exceeding good influence, that we can scarce purchase it too dear. [ Thomas à Kempis ]

For none can express thee, though all should approve thee. I love thee so, dear, that I only can love thee. [ E. B. Browning ]

A woman is seldom roused to great and courageous exertion but when something most dear to her is in immediate danger. [ Joanna Baillie ]

Do not weep, my dear lady! Your tears are too precious to shed for me; bottle them up, and may the cork never be drawn. [ Sterne ]

Her hair was not more sunny than her heart, though like a natural golden coronet it circled her dear head with careless art. [ Lowell ]

An ostentatious man will rather relate a blunder or an absurdity he has committed, than be debarred from talking of his own dear person. [ Addison ]

The scholar only knows how dear these silent yet eloquent companions of pure thoughts and innocent hours become in the season of adversity. [ Washington Irving ]

Prosperity is very liable to bring pride among the other goods with which it endows an individual; it is then that prosperity costs too dear. [ Hosea Ballou ]

Persons who are very plausible and excessively polite have generally some design upon you, as also religionists who call you "dear" the first time they see you. [ Spurgeon ]

All men are by nature equal, made all of the same earth by one Workman; and however we deceive ourselves, as dear unto God is the poor peasant as the mighty prince. [ Plato ]

At the last, when we die, we have the dear angels for our escort on the way. They who can grasp the whole world in their hands can surely also guard our souls, that they make that last journey safely. [ Luther ]

There is a Spanish proverb that a lapidary who would grow rich must buy of those who go to be executed, as not caring how cheap they sell; and sell to those who go to be married, as not caring how dear they buy. [ Fuller ]

A thousand wheels of labor are turned by dear affections, and kept in motion by self-sacrificing endurance; and the crowds that pour forth in the morning and return at night are daily processiona of love and duty. [ Chapin ]

Let us not envy some men their accumulated riches; their burden would be too heavy for us; we could not sacrifice, as they do, health, quiet, honor, and conscience, to obtain them: it is to pay so dear for them that the bargain is a loss. [ Bruyere ]

How dear the sure counsel of a present friend, whose heavenly power failing, the lonely one sinks in silence; for earnest thought and resolution, locked within his breast, are slowly ripened; the presence of the loved one soon warms them into being. [ Goethe ]

Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other, and scarcely in that; for it is true, we may give advice, but we cannot give conduct. Remember this; they that will not be counseled cannot be helped. If you do not hear reason she will rap you over your knuckles. [ Benjamin Franklin ]

We may put too high a premium on speech from platform and pulpit; at the bar and in the legislative hall, and pay dear for the whistle of our endless harangues. England, and especially Germany, are less loquacious, and attend more to business. We let the eagle, and perhaps too often the peacock, scream. [ Bartol ]

Morals are of inestimable value, for every man is born crammed with sin microbes, and the only thing that can extirpate these sin microbes is morals. Now you take a sterilized Christian - I mean, you take the sterilized Christian, for there's only one. Dear sir, I wish you wouldn't look at me like that. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]

Oh, my dear friends, - you who are letting miserable misunderstandings run on from year to year, meaning to clear them up some day, - if you only could know and see and feel that the time is short, how it would break the spell! How you would go instantly and do the thing which you might never have another chance to do! [ Phillips Brooks ]

There is something too dear in the hope of seeing again.... Dear heart, be quiet; we say; you will not be long separated from those people that you love; be quiet, dear heart! And then we give it in the meanwhile a shadow, so that it has something, and then it is good and quiet, like a little child whose mother gives it a doll instead of the apple which it ought not to eat. [ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe ]

I put myself, my experiences, my observations, my heart and soul into my work. I press my soul upon the white paper. The writer who does this may have any style, he or she will find the hearts of their readers. Writing a book involves, not a waste, but a great expenditure of vital force. Yet I can assure you I have written the last lines of most of my stories with tears. The characters of my own creation had become dear to me. I could not bear to bid them good-bye and send them away from me into the wide world. [ Amelia E. Barr, The Art of Authorship, 1891 ]

I smoke in bed until I have to go to sleep; I wake up in the night, sometimes once, sometimes twice; sometimes three times, and I never waste any of these opportunities to smoke. This habit is so old and dear and precious to me that I would feel as you, sir, would feel if you should lose the only moral you've got - meaning the chairman - if you've got one: I am making no charges: I will grant, here, that I have stopped smoking now and then, for a few months at a time, but it was not on principle, it was only to show off; it was to pulverize those critics who said I was a slave to my habits and couldn't break my bonds. [ Mark Twain, Seventieth Birthday speech ]

Poetry is the first and last of all knowledge: it is immortal as the heart of men. If the labors of the men of science should ever create any revolution, direct or indirect, in our condition, and in the impressions which we habitually receive, the poet will then sleep no more than at present; he will be ready to follow the steps of the man of science, not only in those general indirect effects, but he will be at his side, carrying sensation into the midst of the objects of the science itself. The remotest discoveries of the chemist, the botanist, or mineralogist will be as proper objects of the poet's art as any upon which it can be employed, if the time should ever come when these things shall be familiar to us, and the relations under which they are contemplated by the followers of the respective sciences shall be manifestly and palpably material to us as enjoying and suffering beings. If the time should ever come when what is now called science, thus familiarized to men, shall be ready to put on. as it were, a form of flesh and blood, the poet will lend his divine spirit to aid the transfiguration, and will welcome the being thus produced as a dear and genuine inmate of the household of man. [ Wordsworth ]

dear in Scrabble®

The word dear is playable in Scrabble®, no blanks required.

Scrabble® Letter Score: 5

Highest Scoring Scrabble® Plays In The Letters dear:

DARE
(21)
READ
(21)
DEAR
(21)
 

All Scrabble® Plays For The Word dear

DEAR
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DEAR
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DEAR
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DEAR
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DEAR
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DEAR
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DEAR
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The 152 Highest Scoring Scrabble® Plays For Words Using The Letters In dear

DARE
(21)
READ
(21)
DEAR
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DEAR
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DARE
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READ
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DEAR
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DARE
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DEAR
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DARE
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DARE
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READ
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READ
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READ
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DEAR
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READ
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DARE
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READ
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DARE
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RED
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RED
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DEAR
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RED
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DARE
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DARE
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AD
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dear in Words With Friends™

The word dear is playable in Words With Friends™, no blanks required.

Words With Friends™ Letter Score: 5

Highest Scoring Words With Friends™ Plays In The Letters dear:

DARE
(27)
READ
(27)
DEAR
(27)
 

All Words With Friends™ Plays For The Word dear

DEAR
(27)
DEAR
(21)
DEAR
(15)
DEAR
(15)
DEAR
(15)
DEAR
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DEAR
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DEAR
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DEAR
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The 165 Highest Scoring Words With Friends™ Plays Using The Letters In dear

DARE
(27)
READ
(27)
DEAR
(27)
DEAR
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DARE
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READ
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DARE
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DARE
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DEAR
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DARE
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READ
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READ
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READ
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DEAR
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READ
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DARE
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READ
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DARE
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RED
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RED
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RED
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DEAR
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DEAR
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Words within the letters of dear

2 letter words in dear (3 words)

3 letter words in dear (4 words)

4 letter words in dear (Anagrams) (3 words)

dear + 2 blanks (268 words)

abiderabradeaddersaddleradhereadjureadmireadoredadoreradoresadverbadvertadwareagreedaidersairbedaldersarcadearchedardentareadyarguedaviderazuredbadderbadgerbalderbarbedbarfedbargedbarkedbarredbeardsbedarebedarkbedlarblaredbracedbrakedbravedbrayedbrazedbreadscardedcardercarpedcartedcarvedcedarscradlecranedcratedcravedcrazeddabberdafterdaggerdamnerdamperdancerdanderdangerdankerdapperdarersdarkendarkerdarneddarnerdarteddarterdasherdatersdauberdeaderdeaferdeairsdealerdearerdeariedearlydearthdebarkdebarsdecarbdecaredecartdefragdefraydehairdemarkdenarsdenarydeodardepartderailderaysdermaldialerdiaperdogeardrakesdrapeddraperdrapesdrawerdrayeddrazeldreadsdreamsdreamtdreamydrearyearbudearnedendearenlarderasederrandevaderfardelfarmedfearedfedoraflaredframedfrayedgandergarbedgardengearedglaredgracedgradedgradergradesgratedgravedgrayedgrazedhairedhanderhardenharderharkedharmedharpedhatredheaderheraldjarredladderlairedlanderlardedlarderlarkedleaderloadermaddermarkedmarrednearedoratedordealpadderpadrespairedpanderparadepargedparkedparsedpartedpetardpratedprayedrackedradomeraftedraggedraidedraiderrailedrainedraisedrammedrampedrangedrankedrantedrappedraspedrattedrazeedrazzedreaddsreaderreadmereakedreamedreapedrearedreavedrecladredactredateredealredialredragredrawregardrelaidreloadremaderemandrepaidrereadresaidresandretardrewardroadieroamedroaredsabredsacredsaddersanderscaredsearedshadersharedsnaredsoaredspadersparedspreadstaredtarredtearedtetradthreadtiradetracedtradedtradertradestreadsundearunreadvariedvearedwadderwaderswanderwardedwardenwarderwarmedwarnedwarpedwarredwartedxrayedyardedyarnedzander

Word Growth involving dear

Shorter words in dear

ar ear

Longer words containing dear

breadearner breadearners

breadearning

dearer

dearest

dearie dearies

dearly

dearness

dears endears

dearth dearths

dearticulate dearticulated

dearticulate dearticulates

dearticulating

dearticulation dearticulations

deary

endear endeared

endear endearing endearingly

endear endearment endearments

endear endears

hardearned

sidearm sidearms

undear