dear

Adjective modifier

• poor: Poor little dears, how glad they will be to come.
• old: Ah, where are the old dears who smelled of lavender and gave small altar boys stripy mints they couldn't crunch!
• little: Poor little dears, how glad they will be to come.

Adjective complement with noun phrase

• make: It will simply discourage owners from selling, and the badly devised levy will make land still dearer.

Modifies a noun

• grandad: Loving husband of Catherine, much loved dad of Dawn, father-in-law of Philip, dearest grandad of Shelley and Kevin.
• grandmother: Dearly loved mother of Paul and Elaine, mother-in-law of Karen and Russell, dearest grandmother of David and Jenny.
• brother: A dear brother who passed away suddenly at home.
• friend: Would a man be afraid to be judged by his dearest friend, or think his sentence would be terrible?
• grandfather: Dearly loved husband of Dorothy, much loved father of Clifford, father-in-law of Jane, dearest grandfather of Martin and Samantha.
• wish: For me, you see, marriage and then children was my dearest wish and, yes, even expectation.

Modifying Another Word

• much: I thought this large for the tool, and wondered if the first-hand rackets were much dearer.
• little: The price of meat was a little dearer than when she was a girl.
• still: It will simply discourage owners from selling, and the badly devised levy will make land still dearer.

Used with adjective complement

• hold: At last, I steeled myself and swore on all that I hold dearest that it would be out early in November.

Preposition: for

• consumer: The reason seems obvious: outputs may be dearer for the consumers, but inputs are cheaper for the producers.

Preposition: than

• life: There is something dearer than life to me, and to God there was something more precious than even the blood of his Son.