‘The price is slightly higher’ (slightly + comparative adjective) – English Grammar Profiler

‘Slightly’ is an adverb and it means ‘to a small degree’ or ‘a little‘. The opposite meaning is ‘considerably’ = ‘to a large extent.’

The meaning is similar:

• The price is slightly higher.
• The price is a little higher.

‘slightly‘ adds more detail to ‘higher‘.

In the English Grammar Profile, B2 point 57 in the category of  adjectives in the English Grammar Profile is defined:

‘SLIGHTLY’ to modify comparative adjectives to a small degree.

A search in the iWeb corpus:

1 SLIGHTLY HIGHER 29559

1 THAN (CSN ) 9879
2 PRICE (NN1 ) 1458

3 RATE (NN1 ) 1425 4 RATES (NN2 ) 702 5 RISK (NN1 ) 682 6 PRICES (NN2 ) 617 7 COST (NN1 ) 511 8 LEVELS (NN2 ) 409 9 INTEREST (NN1 ) 403

10 TEMPERATURE (NN1 ) 338

2 SLIGHTLY LARGER 22466

1 THAN (CSN ) 9478 2 SIZE (NN1 ) 1150 3 DIAMETER (NN1 ) 712 4 HOLE (NN1 ) 367

5 MALES (NN2 ) 359

3 SLIGHTLY SMALLER 15931

He can produce slightly smaller versions of himself. Each version can do only two things: radio information back to its parent, and produce slightly smaller versions of itself.