When using these words as adjectives there are similar degrees of overlap and distinction. Farther does not work very well as a sentence adverb, and so it would sound rather awkward to begin a sentence with “Farther, I’d like to address the issue of why these words are so confusing.” As Adjectives Further has the meaning of “moreover” or “additionally,” one that is not shared by farther. 2017 As AdverbsĪs adverbs, further and farther are not confined to distance, and this leads to one clearer distinction between the words.
Richard Morrison, The Times (London, Eng.), 22 Sept. Go farther back in history and you find composers being equally subversive in clever, coded ways. Many usage guides will still recommend keeping farther reserved for literal distance and further for figurative, but there is enough recently published evidence of the figurative use of farther that it is difficult to say it is a mistake. As adverbs, they still are interchangeable when applied to distance (whether spatial, temporal, or metaphorical). For much of their history the words have been used interchangeably. Welcome to English.įurther is the older of the two, with farther originating from it as a variant in Middle English. In certain cases you would do well to use one over the other, in other cases there is a degree of leeway, and in still others it doesn’t much matter which one you use. The problem of distinguishing between further and farther is compounded by the fact that each of these words can be an adverb, adjective, or a verb, and has multiple meanings in some of these parts of speech. Herman Melville, Israel Potter, 1855 The Origins of ‘Further’ vs. With the result of his hunting he purchased a hundred acres of land, further down the river, toward the more settled parts.
Dusenheimer," a sawmill further down the stream, a blacksmith-shop, and a store, and three or four unpainted dwellings of the slab variety. It consisted of the plank platform on which he stood, a wooden house, half painted, with a dirty piazza (unroofed) in front, and a sign board hung on a slanting pole bearing the legend, "Hotel. The most common quick answer is usually something along the lines of " farther is for physical distance and further is for figurative distance." As is often the case, however, simple rules run into the buzzsaw of actual usage.
The case of further and farther has been common enough over the past hundred-plus years that dozens of usage guides have had a crack at coming up with a simple explanation. They've been mixed up for what seems forever.