almost

adv
/ˈɔːl.məʊst/UK/ˈɔː(l)məs//ˈɔl.moʊst/US/ˈɒɫmoʊst/CA

Etymology

Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h₂el-der.? Proto-Indo-European *h₂elnós Proto-Germanic *allaz Proto-Germanic *ala- Proto-West Germanic *ala- Old English æl- Proto-Indo-European *meh₂-der. Proto-Germanic *maiz Proto-Germanic *maistaz Proto-Germanic *maist Proto-West Germanic *maist Old English mǣst Old English eallmǣst Middle English almost English almost From Middle English almost, from Old English eallmǣst (“nearly all, almost, for the most part”), equivalent to al- (“all”) + most.

  1. inherited from eallmǣst
  2. inherited from almost

Definitions

  1. Very close to, but not quite.

    • Almost all people went there.
    • We almost missed the train.
    • Nobody, or almost, noticed anything unusual.
  2. Up to, except for a negligible set (where negligible is not universally but contextually…

    Up to, except for a negligible set (where negligible is not universally but contextually defined).

    • almost all
    • almost no
  3. 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.

The neighborhood

Vish — recursive loop

A definitional loop anchored at almost. Each word in the ring is defined by the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself. Scroll to it and watch.

01almost02defined03separation04homes05home06dwelt07dwell08brief09distance10chiefly

A definitional loop anchored at almost. Each word in the ring appears in the definition of the next; follow the chain far enough and it folds back on itself.

10 hops · closes at almost

curated · pre-corpus. live cycle detection across the full graph is the next major milestone.

sense glosses and etymology drawn from English Wiktionary · source · CC-BY-SA