What's the difference between better and rather?

Better


Definition:

  • (a.) Having good qualities in a greater degree than another; as, a better man; a better physician; a better house; a better air.
  • (a.) Preferable in regard to rank, value, use, fitness, acceptableness, safety, or in any other respect.
  • (a.) Greater in amount; larger; more.
  • (a.) Improved in health; less affected with disease; as, the patient is better.
  • (a.) More advanced; more perfect; as, upon better acquaintance; a better knowledge of the subject.
  • (n.) Advantage, superiority, or victory; -- usually with of; as, to get the better of an enemy.
  • (n.) One who has a claim to precedence; a superior, as in merit, social standing, etc.; -- usually in the plural.
  • (compar.) In a superior or more excellent manner; with more skill and wisdom, courage, virtue, advantage, or success; as, Henry writes better than John; veterans fight better than recruits.
  • (compar.) More correctly or thoroughly.
  • (compar.) In a higher or greater degree; more; as, to love one better than another.
  • (compar.) More, in reference to value, distance, time, etc.; as, ten miles and better.
  • (a.) To improve or ameliorate; to increase the good qualities of.
  • (a.) To improve the condition of, morally, physically, financially, socially, or otherwise.
  • (a.) To surpass in excellence; to exceed; to excel.
  • (a.) To give advantage to; to support; to advance the interest of.
  • (v. i.) To become better; to improve.
  • (n.) One who bets or lays a wager.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The purpose of these studies was to better understand the molecular basis of chromosome aberration formation after mitomycin C treatment.
  • (2) Mike Ashley told Lee Charnley that maybe he could talk with me last week but I said: ‘Listen, we cannot say too much so I think it’s better if we wait.’ The message Mike Ashley is sending is quite positive, but it was better to talk after we play Tottenham.” Benítez will ask Ashley for written assurances over his transfer budget, control of transfers and other spheres of club autonomy, but can also reassure the owner that the prospect of managing in the second tier holds few fears for him.
  • (3) Plasma NPY correlated better with plasma norepinephrine than with epinephrine, indicating its origin from sympathetic nerve terminals.
  • (4) McDonald said cutting better deals with suppliers and improving efficiency as well as raising some prices had only partly offset the impact of sterling’s fall against the dollar.
  • (5) Enhanced sensitivity to ITDs should translate to better-defined azimuthal receptive fields, and therefore may be a step toward achieving an optimal representation of azimuth within the auditory pathway.
  • (6) It is my desperate hope that we close out of town.” In the book, God publishes his own 'It Getteth Better' video and clarifies his original writings on homosexuality: I remember dictating these lines to Moses; and afterward looking up to find him staring at me in wide-eyed astonishment, and saying, "Thou do knowest that when the Israelites read this, they're going to lose their fucking shit, right?"
  • (7) Even former Florida governor Jeb Bush, one of Trump’s chief critics, said ultimately, “anybody is better than Hillary Clinton”.
  • (8) Blood pressure control was marginally improved during the study and it is thought possible that better patient compliance might explain this.
  • (9) Patients in these groups had better postoperative analgesia.
  • (10) When the Tunnel closed, Hardee decamped in 1991 to Up The Creek - a slightly better behaved venue in nearby Greenwich, which Hardee described as "the Tunnel with A-levels".
  • (11) Compared with conservative management, better long-term success (determined by return of athletic soundness and less evidence of degenerative joint disease) was achieved with surgical curettage of elbow subchondral cystic lesions.
  • (12) Breast conserving surgery in patients with small tumors combined with radiation therapy has gained wide popularity due to better cosmetic results without significant changes in survival.
  • (13) The combination of methotrexate and cyclosporin is significantly better than either alone in controlling GVHD.
  • (14) In both instances the permeation rates of proteins can be better correlated to hydrodynamic radii than to molecular weights.
  • (15) This is basically a large tank (the bigger the better) that collects rain from the house guttering and pumps it into the home, to be used for flushing the loo.
  • (16) The cell fermentation culture with a stabilized pH value was better than the culture with the pH value changing spontaneously on saponin content, growth rate and biomass.
  • (17) With better understanding of metabolic and compositional requirements, great advances have been made in the area of total parenteral nutrition.
  • (18) A retrospective study was done in 86 patients on dialysis in order to evaluate the doses of aluminum hydroxide (OH3 Al) received to achieve a better serum phosphate control.
  • (19) From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future.
  • (20) To get a better understanding of the different cell interactions during the immune response to a hapten-carrier complex, the effects of immunogenic or tolerogenic injections of various hapten-containing compounds on the responses induced by immunization with the same hapten coupled to protein carriers were studied.

Rather


Definition:

  • (a.) Prior; earlier; former.
  • (a.) Earlier; sooner; before.
  • (a.) More readily or willingly; preferably.
  • (a.) On the other hand; to the contrary of what was said or suggested; instead.
  • (a.) Of two alternatives conceived of, this by preference to, or as more likely than, the other; somewhat.
  • (a.) More properly; more correctly speaking.
  • (a.) In some degree; somewhat; as, the day is rather warm; the house is rather damp.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) For some time now, public opinion polls have revealed Americans' strong preference to live in comparatively small cities, towns, and rural areas rather than in large cities.
  • (2) They’re no crack force either; many are rather portly!
  • (3) It has recently been suggested that procaine penicillin existed in solution in vitro and in vivo as a "procaine - penicillin" complex rather than as dissociated ions.
  • (4) Recent data collected by the Games Outcomes Project and shared on the website Gamasutra backs up the view that crunch compounds these problems rather than solving them.
  • (5) The Cole-Moore effect, which was found here only under a specific set of conditions, thus may be a special case rather than the general property of the membrane.
  • (6) The pancreatic changes are unlikely to be an artefact, but rather a direct toxic effect of the alcohol as confirmed by the biochemical changes.
  • (7) Reactive metabolites which suppress splenic humoral immune responses are thought to be generated within the spleen rather than in distant tissues.
  • (8) These results indicate that HBV markers in cord blood are either false-positive or due to contamination by maternal blood rather than an indication of in utero infection.
  • (9) As a group, the three mammalian proteins resemble bovine serum conglutinin and behave as lectins with rather broad sugar specificities directed at certain non-reducing terminal N-acetylglucosamine, mannose, glucose and fucose residues, but with subtle differences in fine specificities.
  • (10) Several interpretations of the results are examined including the possibility that the effects of Valium use were short-lived rather than long-term and that Valium may have been taken in anticipation of anxiety rather than after its occurrence.
  • (11) Women seldom occupy higher positions in a [criminal] organisation, and are rather used for menial, but often dangerous tasks ,” it notes.
  • (12) It is time to start over with an approach to promoting wellbeing in foreign countries that is empirical rather than ideological.
  • (13) In one of the cirrhotic patients, postmortem correlation of sonographic, angiographic, and pathological findings showed that the dilated vessels seen on sonography were cystic veins draining normally into the portal vein rather than portosystemic anastomoses.
  • (14) Communicating sustainability is a subtle attempt at doing good Read more And yet, in environmental terms it is infinitely preferable to prevent waste altogether, rather than recycle it.
  • (15) Current recommendations regarding contraception in patients with diabetes are not appropriate for the adolescent population and therefore tend to support this phenomenon rather than relieve it.
  • (16) Hence the major role of the 14-A arm of carboxybiotin is not to permit a large carboxyl migration but, rather to permit carboxybiotin to traverse the gap which occurs at the interface of three subunits and to insinuate itself between the CoA and keto acid sites.
  • (17) These later results suggest that dopamine agonists increase sensorimotor reactivity measured with acoustic startle by acting on sensory rather than motor parts of the reflex arc.
  • (18) This was due to the fact that stale bread was fed ad lib, rather than concentrates.
  • (19) Rather, academics need to involve themselves in managerial roles.
  • (20) Decreased synthesis rather than increased utilization accounted for the nucleoside effect.