What is the difference between brief and detail?

Question

Are they both antonyms?

While doing my exam

there was written in the question paper that 'answer the following question in breif'

and 'answer the following question in detail'

the brief one were of 2 marks

and detailed were of 4 marks.

does brief mean short

and detailed mean long?

Jay A. Little · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-13 13:08:54Z

0

Yes, as phrases these two are antonyms and you understood them correctly:

From the Oxford Dictionary:

"In a few words; in short."

"As regards every feature or aspect; fully."

answered Apr 13 '18 at 13:08

Jay A. Little

2,6944 silver badges17 bronze badges

okay. but this is what confuses me wikidiff.com/brief/detail 😶 – user73753 Apr 13 '18 at 13:10
I see. But there is a difference to their meanings as words and as phrases. You want to look at the phrases "in brief" and "in detail" rather than just the words "brief" and "detail". – Jay A. Little Apr 13 '18 at 13:14
what's phrases? – user73753 Apr 13 '18 at 13:25
sorry but I'm not a native speaker – user73753 Apr 13 '18 at 13:26
A phrase is a small group of two or more words. One word can have a meaning by itself and that same word in a phrase can have a new meaning. Just like "detail" (a word) has one meaning and "in detail" (a phrase) has its own meaning. – Jay A. Little Apr 13 '18 at 13:50

| show 4 more comments

1 Answer 1