almost
Language: English
Part of speech: adv
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈɔːɫ.məʊst/
note: emphatic, utterance-final
ipa: /ɔːɫˈməʊst/
ipa: /ˈɔː(l)məs/
ipa: /ˈɔl.moʊst/
ipa: /ˈɑl.moʊst/
ipa: /ˈoʊ.moʊst/
ipa: [ˈɒːɫmost]
rhymes: -əʊst
Forms: form: aulmos
Etymology: From Middle English almost, from Old English eallmǣst (“nearly all, almost, for the most part”), equivalent to al- (“all”) + most.
Senses: examples: raw_tags: not all but very close to it
text: Almost all people went there.
raw_tags: not missed but very close to it
text: We almost missed the train.
text: Nobody, or almost, noticed anything unusual.
text: Although the Celebrity was almost impervious to sarcasm, he was now beginning to exhibit visible signs of uneasiness, the consciousness dawning upon him that his eccentricity was not receiving the ovation it merited.
ref: 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
text: This time was most dreadful for Lilian. Thrown on her own resources and almost penniless, she maintained herself and paid the rent of a wretched room near the hospital by working as a charwoman, sempstress, anything. In a moment she had dropped to the level of a casual labourer.
ref: 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
text: Eustace gaped at him in amazement. When his urbanity dropped away from him, as now, he had an innocence of expression which was almost infantile. It was as if the world had never touched him at all.
ref: 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter IX, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
text: For some odd reason, Sherin has chosen to direct the play as a comedy — at times almost a farce.
ref: 1976 December 25, Robert Chesley, “New York's "Nightingale" Does No Justice to Williams' Play”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 26, page 20:
text: In order to grant the rich these pleasures, the social contract is reconfigured. […] The public realm is privatised, the regulations restraining the ultra-wealthy and the companies they control are abandoned, and Edwardian levels of inequality are almost fetishised.
ref: 2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 23, page 19:
synonyms: word: environ
glosses: Very close to, but not quite.
examples: text: almost all
text: almost no
topics: mathematics
sciences
glosses: Up to, except for a negligible set (where negligible is not universally but contextually defined).
examples: text: almost everywhere
text: almost nowhere
text: almost certain
text: almost sure
topics: mathematics
measure-theory
probability-theory
sciences
glosses: Up to, except for a negligible set (where negligible is not universally but contextually defined).
Up to a null set; except for a set of measure 0.
Synonyms: sense: very close to, but not quite
word: nearly
sense: very close to, but not quite
word: nigh
sense: very close to, but not quite
word: well-nigh
sense: very close to, but not quite
word: near
sense: very close to, but not quite
word: close to
sense: very close to, but not quite
word: next to
sense: very close to, but not quite
word: practically
sense: very close to, but not quite
word: virtually
sense: very close to, but not quite
word: not yet
sense: very close to, but not quite
word: not
word: all but
word: almost
word: as good as
word: as near as makes no difference
word: fornigh
word: just about
word: more or less
word: near as damn it
word: nigh on
word: nighwhat
word: not quite
word: pretty much
word: tantamount to
Hypernyms: word: partially
word: unsuccessfully
Derived terms: almost all
almost doesn't count
almost everywhere
almost fall of one's chair
almostness
almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades
almost prime
almost split sequence
almost standards mode
almost surely
Related terms: word: approximately