most
Language: English
Part of speech: adv
Pronunciation: enpr: mōst
ipa: /ˈməʊst/
enpr: mōst
ipa: /ˈmoʊst/
ipa: [ˈmoːst]
rhymes: -əʊst
Forms: form: moste
Etymology: From Middle English most, moste, from Old English mǣst, māst, from Proto-Germanic *maistaz, *maist. Cognate with Scots mast, maist (“most”), Saterland Frisian maast (“most”), West Frisian meast (“most”), Dutch meest (“most”), German meist (“most”), Danish and Swedish mest (“most”), Icelandic mestur (“most”).
Senses: examples: text: This is the most important example.
text: Correctness is most important.
text: With some of it on the south and more of it on the north of the great main thoroughfare that connects Aldgate and the East India Docks, St. Bede's at this period of its history was perhaps the poorest and most miserable parish in the East End of London.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC, page 77:
text: “[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes[…]. And then, when you see [the senders], you probably find that they are the most melancholy old folk with malignant diseases. […]”
ref: 1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC:
antonyms: least
glosses: Forms the superlative of many adjectives.
examples: text: This is a most unusual specimen.
text: Most cruel edict! Sure, thy generous soul, Septimius, abhors the dreadful task of persecution.
ref: 1750, “Theodora”, Thomas Morell (lyrics), George Frideric Handel (music):
text: A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy!
ref: 1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Ship”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 77:
text: Now, I still think that for this box of matches to have escaped the wear of time for immemorial years was a most strange, as for me it was a most fortunate, thing.
ref: 1895 May 29, H[erbert] G[eorge] Wells, “The Palace of Green Porcelain”, in The Time Machine: An Invention, London: William Heinemann, →OCLC, pages 114–115:
text: “His song is most unpleasant,” said the King rubbing his head, “pray bid him cease,” and off went the secretary to argue with the wind.
ref: 1922, Ruth Plumly Thompson, “The Last Giant”, in The Princess of Cozytown, P. F. Volland, page 80:
glosses: To a great extent or degree; highly; very.
examples: text: Economics is a messy discipline: too fluid to be a science, too rigorous to be an art. Perhaps it is fitting that economists’ most-used metric, gross domestic product (GDP), is a tangle too.
ref: 2013 August 3, “Boundary Problems”, in The Economist, volume 408, number 8847:
glosses: superlative degree of much
Derived terms: aldermost
at most
at the most
at the very most
backmost
empty barrels make the most noise
empty cans make the most noise
empty vessels make the most noise
empty vessels make the most sound
foremost
for the most part
frontmost
hindmost
host with the most
innermost
lookers-on see most of the game
make the most of
-most
most an end
most favored nation
most favoured nation
most like
mostly
most muscular
mostness
most of all
most of the time
most-perfect magic square
most Rikki-Tik
most significant bit
most significant byte
most valuable player
most vexing parse
most wanted
mostwhat
one-size-fits-most
outermost
rearmost
second most
The Most Reverend
westermost
Related terms: more