Remaining, Remainder, and Rest of

01This week on Ask a Teacher, we answer a question from Anne.

02Here is part of Anne's question.

03Dear Teachers, I don't really understand the difference between remaining, remainder, and rest when using these words to describe what is left of something.

04For example, can I replace the remaining countries by the remain or the rest?

05Thank you, Anne.

06I'm happy to answer this question, Anne.

07English has many words that share the same meaning or that are close in meaning.

08So, you might wonder why we usually use one word instead of another that is very similar to it.

09We often use one word instead of another because of grammar.

10Let's look at how this works by considering the last part of your question.

11You asked, Can I replace the remaining countries by the remain or the rest?

12The answer is no.

13That's because the word remain is a verb and the term the rest is a quantifier.

14To describe the word countries, we need to use an adjective.

15The ing ending on the word remaining makes it an adjective when we place it before a noun.

16If you want to use the words the rest to describe a noun, you need to use four words.

17These four words are the rest of the.

18These four words mean the same thing as the two words, the remaining.

19The following example shows this.

20The rest of the countries use more land for farming.

21Now let's look at the first part of your question.

22I don't really understand the difference between remaining, remainder, and rest when using these words to describe what is left of something.

23The word remainder is a noun, but when we use it to describe what is left of something, we change it to a quantifier.

24To do this, we usually say or write the four words, the remainder of the.

25In this way, it works the same way as the quantifier, the rest of the.

26However, we use the quantifier, the rest of the, much more often, especially in spoken English, than the remainder of the.

27Also, you should know that as a noun, the remainder is a term used in mathematics.

28It can mean the decimal fraction that remains when one number is divided by another number that is not one of its factors.

29For example, six-tenths or point six is the remainder when thirty-three is divided by five.

30It can also be what is left over from the process of subtraction.

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