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almost

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also: álmost and Álmost

English

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 almost on Wikipedia

Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Middle English almost, from Old English eallmǣst (“nearly all, almost, for the most part”), equivalent to al- (“all”) +‎ most.

Pronunciation

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  • (UK) IPA(key): /ˈɔːɫ.məʊst/, (emphatic, utterance-final) /ɔːɫˈməʊst/
    • (colloquial, unaccented) IPA(key): /ˈɔː(l)məs/
  • (US) IPA(key): /ˈɔl.moʊst/, /ˈɑl.moʊst/, /ˈoʊ.moʊst/
  • (Canada) IPA(key): [ˈɒːɫmost]
  • Hyphenation: al‧most
  • Rhymes: -əʊst

Adverb

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almost (not comparable)

  1. Very close to, but not quite.
    Synonym: (obsolete) environ
    Almost all people went there. (not all but very close to it)
    We almost missed the train. (not missed but very close to it)
    • 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:
      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.
    • 1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XVII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC:
      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.
    • 1963, Margery Allingham, chapter IX, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC:
      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.
    • 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:
      For some odd reason, Sherin has chosen to direct the play as a comedy — at times almost a farce.
    • 2013 May 17, George Monbiot, “Money just makes the rich suffer”, in The Guardian Weekly‎[1], volume 188, number 23, page 19:
      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.
  2. (mathematics) Up to, except for a negligible set (where negligible is not universally but contextually defined).
    almost all
    almost no
    1. (measure theory, probability theory) Up to a null set; except for a set of measure 0.
      almost everywhere
      almost nowhere
      almost certain
      almost sure

Synonyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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Noun

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almost (plural almosts)

  1. (informal) Something or someone that doesn't quite make it.
    In all the submissions, they found four papers that were clearly worth publishing and another dozen almosts.

References

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Anagrams

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Middle English

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Alternative forms

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Etymology

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From Old English eallmǣst (“nearly all, almost, for the most part”), equivalent to al- (“all”) +‎ most.

Pronunciation

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Adverb

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almost

  1. almost

Descendants

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  • English: almost
  • ⇒ Yola: almostly

References

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