Definition of "than" [than]

• Used after a comparative adjective or adverb to introduce the second element or clause of an unequal comparison: She is a better athlete than I. (conjunction)
• Used to introduce the second element after certain words indicating difference: He draws quite differently than she does. (conjunction)
• When. Used especially after hardly and scarcely: I had scarcely walked in the door than the commotion started. (conjunction)
• Usage Problem In comparison or contrast with: could run faster than him; outclassed everyone other than her. (preposition)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "“Well, ” said Tom, with cold scorn, “if your feelings are so much better than mine, let me see you show them in some other way than by conduct that’s likely to disgrace us all, —than by ridiculous flights first into one extreme and then into another."
• "He had urged the government in his last letters before leaving France to send it not later than a fortnight after he himself had sailed: “The convoy will cross much more safely now under the guard of two warships, ” he had written to Montbarey, “than it will in a month with an escort of thirty, when the English are ready."
• "OR, _adv. _ before, as _Or this_, before this time; rather than, _Or than_, before then."