Picture two things standing side by side. One is bigger, heavier or more important; the one you point at with lesser is the other. The word never really stands alone — a bigger one is always somewhere in the picture, even when nobody names it. That is why lesser feels formal: it is a comparison that has been folded into a single word.
From the word’s history
Wiktionary records lesser as less + -er — a comparative ending stuck onto a word that is already a comparative. The doubling matches what the word does: it is a comparison wearing a comparison.
來源資料記著 lesser 就是 less 加上比較級字尾 -er，也就是在一個已經是比較級的字上，又比了一次。這個重複正好對上它今天的樣子：它整個字就是一場比較，所以它永遠需要另一邊。
evidence packet: Wiktionary (kaikki) etymology_text for lesser — "From less + -er."
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原始詞典資料3 筆記錄
以下是外部詞典記錄的用法，摘錄並精簡格式，我們還沒有寫成教學內容。上面的說明才是我們自己寫的；有些用法可能上面已經講過了。
Lessername
- 1
A surname.
- Into them Lesser inserts three intentionally similar heroines, annoying American expats in Cambridge, England,[ ]whose Anglophilia leads to a quite unwarranted amount of sightseeing.
lesseradj/ˈlɛsɚ/
- 1
Of two (or, rarely, more than two) things: the smaller in size (littler), in value, in importance etc.
- lesser panda
- lesser yellowlegs
lesseradj/ˈlɛsɚ/
- 1
that which is of lesser size, quality, degree, or significance; of lower status, importance, or rank
- The larger Sand Hill Cranes increasingly do not migrate, but almost all lesser ones do.
- Between the two men, he was clearly the lesser one.
摘錄自 英文維基詞典 English Wiktionary，已精簡格式；依 CC BY-SA 4.0 授權使用，改動後的內容同樣以此授權提供。